Friday's Odds and Ends

There was an interesting article in last Sunday's Dallas Morning News written originally in the Princeton Alumni magazine by Lawrence Otis Graham, an attorney and author. His article, Wealth can't protect your kids from racism, had some interesting things to say about the problem. What prompted the article was in incident involving his 15-year-old son and a bigoted white guy at a New England boarding school.

Apparently, as the young man was walking across campus, a guy in a car pulled up beside him and called out, "Are you the only nigger at Mellon Academy?" (Graham changed the name of the school.)

Graham was most upset about the incident because he said he and his wife had worked hard to teach their children how to act and talk so they would fit in smoothly with the white community. No slouchy pants, no sunglasses, no hoodies, and no ebonics. Yet this young man obviously did not fit in smoothly to the entire white community.

I found this article most distressing. First, just the blatant bigotry that young man in the car displayed. I thought we were past that kind of thing. But therein lies the problem. We are not past it. Not one bit.

Racism and bigotry are two themes I explore in the Seasons Mystery Series that debuted with Open Season, and I have done a lot of research about racial profiling, the use of deadly force, as well as interviews with police officers both black and white about the difficulties they face. That initial research was done almost 30 years ago, and sadly not a lot has changed. You just have to consider what happened to Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012 and the tragedy this year in Ferguson, Missouri.

I think part of the problem is that different bothers us. Sometimes it even scares us. We like to stay in our own area of comfort where we know the people and we know what to expect from them. We are hard-wired to be alert for stranger-danger. 

So maybe we should stop thinking of others as strangers and more like friends we just haven't met.

Something else of interest in the Dallas Morning News was a story about a new program in West Dallas. Two graffiti artists, Eder Martinez and Kirk Garnett went to a city hall meeting and asked if the city would consider a santioned graffiti wall where artists could express themselves creatively and not worry about being arrested. Other cities have freewall public art projects, and Garnett thought that should work in Dallas.

Image courtesy of MarcoFolio.net

Apparently it has. There are plans to add more sites for artists, and it is a win-win on both sides. Kudos to the city leaders for their willingness to listen.

Now here's some advice from Will Rogers to kick off your weekend on a light note:

* There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.
* Never miss a good chance to shut up.
* If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
* The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back into your pocket.
* There are three kinds of men:
         The ones that learn by reading.
         The few who learn by observation.
         The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
* Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
* Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.
* After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

Please do leave a comment if you have an opinion to share, or if you have a joke to share with us.

Monday Morning Musings

First off some book news. I'm about to re-release a mystery, Doubletake, that I wrote with a co-author a number of years ago. It's another police procedural, but not part of the Seasons Series. It was published by a small publisher, and maybe sold ten copies, other than those I sold at signing events or out of the trunk of my car. Hey, didn't Grisham start that way? I think he did, but he put a lot more miles on his car than I did.

Not the finished cover, but close. What do you think?

Anyway, I did all the formatting myself, and gained a great appreciation for those folks who do that for a living. It is the most tedious, eye-straining work I have ever done, and there is no way I am going to do the formatting for the ebook version. I will gladly pay Untreed Reads their nominal fee to do that for me and get the book into all the outlets for ebook reading.

An article in Sunday's Dallas Morning News written by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld was titled What Drives Success. In it, the authors of  the new book The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America talk about the ethnic groups in America that are currently experiencing the most upward mobility. While doing the research for their book they discovered that some of the most successful ethnic groups in terms of earning power come from India, Iran, Lebanon and Chinese.

The couple noted that it is usually first-generation immigrants who have the most success, perhaps because of the three traits Chua and Rubenfeld identified:

It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success. The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good enough. The third is impulse control.

In the article the authors explain the seemingly contradictory "superiority" and "insecurity" and how the two traits work together to motivate hard work, which is another ingredient of success. The authors believe that anyone can develop these traits:

It requires turning the ability to work hard, to persevere and to overcome adversity into a source of personal superiority. This kind of superiority complex isn’t ethnically or religiously exclusive. It’s the pride a person takes in his own strength of will.

The article is quite interesting and worth a read if you have a moment. Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld are professors at Yale Law School. Chua, one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2011, is the author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which unleashed a firestorm debate about the cultural value of self-discipline, as well as the bestselling World on Fire. Rubenfeld examined the political dangers of “living in the moment” in Freedom and Time; he is also the author of the international bestseller The Interpretation of Murder. (I'm tempted to buy this one as the write-up on Amazon intrigued me, but I really hate to pay almost $9 for an ebook. I do hope major publishers soon realize that prices should be a bit lower. I'm not the only consumer who does not buy an e-book priced over $5.)

Now a reminder about the special sale at Untreed Reads through Valentine's Day. All romance titles are on sale for 30% off. All categories of romance from sweet to sexy are offered, including my romance novel, Play It Again, Sam.  One of my favorites from Laura Parker, Rose of the Mists, is also part of this sale.

It is still so cold here that my hands don't always want to work. I'm tempted to get some of these gloves:

Available from Japan Trend Shop

Hope you are warm and toasty wherever you live.

Friday's Odds and Ends

A recent story in the Dallas Morning News reported that the reservoirs serving the Dallas-area are 10% lower than a year ago and the continuing drought does not indicate that it's going to get any better. The area is more than 30 inches shy of normal rainfall over the last six years, yet nobody has taken really serious action toward a long-term solution to the water problem, other than looking at ways to bring in more water - pulling from East Texas reservoirs for one.

People still pour gallons and gallons of water on landscaping and lawns every year, in many cases trying to maintain greenery that was not meant to grow in this hot climate. Perhaps people should think more about whether their grandchildren or great-grandchildren might have a glass of water in their future instead of wanting the most luxurious green lawn today.

Jonathan Rauch, contributing editor to The Atlantic, wrote an interesting article about health care for the very elderly who too often end up in intensive care units at hospitals for the last weeks or days of their lives. He believes that is an unnecessary and extraordinary use of healthcare facilities and money. He wrote, "Hospitals are fine for people needing acute treatments, like heart surgery, but they are very often terrible place for the frail elderly."

The article was promoting the idea of home-based primary care, and to highlight the benefits of that approach, Rauch mentioned a program called Advanced Illness Management at Sutter Health, a giant network of hospitals and doctors in Northern California. Brad Stuart has worked there for the past 15 years, developing home-based care for frail, elderly patients, and he estimates that using that type of program and keeping patients out of the hospital saves Medicare upwards of $2000 a month on each patient, maybe more. "For years, many people in medicine have understood that late-life care for the chronically sick is not only expensive, but also, much too often, ineffective and inhumane."

Because Medicare is not set up to work with this type of program, that is one of the reasons that home-based medical care is not widely used across the country. The layers and layers of rules and requirements and policies for using Medicare seem to be cast in stone and don't leave room for a doctor or a patient or a hospital to figure out a more cost-effective way to handle a medical issue. For example,   there were people in the extended care unit of a hospital at which I worked who were receiving 6 to 8 weeks of IV antibiotics. I don't recall the exact cost of daily hospital stay, but it certainly was a lot more than had these people been allowed to go home with a visiting nurse coming in every day to administer the antibiotic, check the IV port to make sure it was working properly, and tend to any other medical needs the patient might have.

One time, two gentlemen who were stuck in this extended care unit decided that they would use that time to appeal to the government to rethink policy. They gathered statistics from the medical social worker on cost comparisons and then wrote letters to political leaders, starting at the state level and going all the way to Washington. The letters, with all the statistics and a recommendation to change the policy, were also sent to the people who manage and administrate Medicare. The responses that they receive back were often just a form letter that simply stated "We are sorry that our program does not allow for this type of in-home healthcare that you are requesting."

Nobody seemed to be able to look at this idea and say, "Hmmm, maybe we should figure out a way to implement this cost-saving measure and save the taxpayers a whole lot of money."

I know, I know. Government bureaucrats don't seem to understand simple and efficient. And from all outward appearances, they don't seem eager to figure it out.

Isn't this a better setting than a hospital? Photo courtesy of My Elder Advocate

It's been a while since I've done Literary Lessons, and this is a good one from Tennessee Williams' classic play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." The line belongs to Big Daddy, "Ignorance of mortality is a comfort. Men don't have that comfort, he's the only living thing that conceives of death, that knows what it is, the others go without knowing. A pig squeals, but a man, sometimes you can keep a tight mouth about it."

That's kind of depressing, so let's end on a joke.

"How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?"

Monday Morning Musings

Since it is almost noon here in Texas, maybe I should title this, Monday Afternoon Musings. Sorry I'm late. Life keeps interfering.

One nice thing to interfere has been ongoing enthusiasm for the Winnsboro history book that I wrote with our local historian. Here I am with Bill Jones at a recent signing event. I was so thrilled to get this book done for Bill. Everybody in town kept saying we needed to get a book published with all the historical facts that he has stored in his memory banks, and then Arcadia Publishing contacted me wanting an Images of America - Winnsboro book. Talk about something that was meant to be.

Today I am a guest on Yolanda Renee's blog, Defending the Pen. If you have a moment to hop over, you can find out which of my kids I love the most. :-) This is a terrific blog and Yolanda is generous in supporting her fellow authors.

On another note, deliberations for sentencing Nidal Hasan began today, and yesterday a Dallas morning news columnist posed an interesting question on the issue, "What's worse than death?" The columnist suggests that maybe life in solitary confinement  in prison would be a worse punishment for a man who welcomes death because he would be a martyr and a hero to fellow jihadists overseas. Not to mention depriving him of the 70 virgins that are supposed to be part of his eternal reward.  

Proponents of the death penalty say Hasan deserves to die for his crimes, but I agree with the columnist.  Hasan, who was wounded in the shoot-out at Fort Hood, is paralyzed from the chest down, and a greater punishment would be for him to spend many more long years suffering.

In an article in The Dallas Morning News, Dave Lieberman reported about a Texas resident who recently noted a Medicare over-payment that was double what the actual bill was. When she reported that she was told by a medicate representative that it is now standard payment for some services, and the system automatically pays that amount, no matter what the billing amount is. When the woman asked why each bill is not paid according to the billing amount, she was told that this is the system that is in place and it all balances out in the long run. Some submitted bills are higher than the standard payment amount, so that cancels the over-payments.

Oh, really? And we wonder why Medicare is in trouble.A charter school in Houston is a little more than red-faced after it was revealed that administrators misused $5.3 million in federal funds for trips to Las Vegas and New York and cruises. The two top administrators also received salaries of $440,000 while enjoying all those trips and the perks that came with the trips.

This type of misappropriation is too common in school districts across our country, and the trickle-down effect is always a direct negative impact on students and teachers. We can't pay teachers a decent wage for the work they do. Parents are having to purchase more and more supplies for their children, as schools can no longer provide them. Just the other day I was asked at the grocery store if I would like to buy a box of tissues to be donated to the local school.

Now to end on a lighter note, here are a couple of jokes I found on Jokes and Humor for Kids. I thought they would tickle the childish funny bone in all of us.

Question: Why are ghosts bad liars?
Answer: Because you can see right through them

Question: What dog can jump higher than a building?

Answer: Any dog, buildings can't jump!

Fridays Odds and Ends

One couple in Fort Worth, Texas are missing the home that belonged to the husband's grandmother. It was demolished by the city when a demolition crew went to the wrong address. The house next to it was the one that was supposed to be razed after being condemned. The owners were not there at the time, but a neighbor tried to intervene and get the demolition crew on the right track, but those attempts failed. According to an editorial in the Dallas Morning News, the owner is not in the kind of snit many of us would be. He is requesting that the city pay him the fair market value for the house that was demolished, and could the city please remove the concrete slab. "It's not much good anymore."

Not the actual slab, but imagine driving up to your house and seeing this.

 In an interesting take on the whole debate about Snowden and whether he is a traitor or a hero, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said that one good thing to come from the mess is that now a public debate about NASA's domestic snooping is now unavoidable.

I agree that the discussion needs to happen. Ever since 9/11 the average citizen has been negatively impacted by anti-terrorism efforts in too many ways. More thought has to be put into how we protect against terrorism without infringing on the rights and privacy of American citizens, lest we live under the control of Big Brother as fictionalized in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
 

The original cover of the 1949 British Edition

In a real feel good story, I read about a boy of four who is raising money to replace the neighborhood park that was destroyed in the plant explosion in West, Texas. Apparently, this was the park that the boy liked to play in near his grandparents' home and he lost it, along with the home and his father who was a volunteer firefighter. The boy, Parker, is following in his father's legacy of raising money for charitable works, and he held a hot dog sale on a recent Saturday to start raising money to rebuild the park. His grandparents, while still grieving the loss of their son and Parker's father, joined in the effort, along with other residents who added a bake sale and a silent auction to the event. According to the grandmother, the amount of money raised was not enough to even get started on rebuilding the park, but she thought it was important to work with Parker and let him make this effort.

Kudos to Parker and to his grandparents.

Now for some fun from the funny papers. This one is from One Big Happy. Rose, Ruthie's grandmother, is sitting at a desk with a laptop open, her husband, Nick, stands behind her, looking over her shoulder.

Rose says, "Wasn't that cat video adorable."

Nick says, "Below it is the comment 'ROFL'"

Rose translates, "Rolling on the floor laughing."

To which Nick says, "Oh, I thought it meant 'Reaching out to fellow losers.'"

And from Pickles: Earl is sitting on the edge of the bed and Opal asks, "Why are you just sitting there staring into space, Earl?"

"I'm having one of those mornings where I can't decide whether to comb my hair or put on my socks."

"What, you can't do both?"

In the last panel, Opal has walked out and Earl calls after her. "Hey, we're not all overachievers like you you know."

The dog that is on the bed next to Earl adds an "Amen."

Did anything in the news recently strike you as particularly interesting or absurd? What is your favorite comic strip?

Friday's Odds and Ends

Tomorrow is the day. The Nite of Comedy plays on the stage at the Winnsboro Center for the arts in Winnsboro, Texas. If you are nearby, consider coming by and supporting the talented Young Players. 

200 Market Street - Downtown across from the Depot

I noted this past week that one of my favorite Dallas Morning News columnists, Jacquielynn Floyd, had issues with the spelling of her name on documents when she was going through airport security. Apparently the spelling on her driver's license did not match the spelling on her boarding pass. Long before this, I could have told her there would be problems. I never can spell her first name correctly when I mention her in a post and have often wished she could just be Jackie, or Jack, or maybe even Mary. All simple names to spell, right?

I'm rather fond of the simple spelling of my name. What about you? Is your name difficult to spell?

"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us." FDR.

That quote caught my eye when I saw it at the top of a recent column by Alex Rose in the Dallas Morning News. She has spent several years in the Texas Legislature and wrote about how we can have our voices heard over those of lobbyists. Her message was that special interests groups do have significant influence in federal and state governments, but that does not mean that voters cannot have influence if they band together and speak up.

I won't argue the second part of that message. We do have to keep speaking up, even when it seems like our words are blown back in our faces by the wind of big businesses that have the biggest lobby groups. And one of the major things we need to speak up about is a drastic change in the political system, so businesses don't have the kind of power they do now.
 
Now for some fun from the comics.

This first one is from B.C. and Wiley's Dictionary: The definition of "Lip Service."

"Regular botox injections."

This one is from Baby Blues. The family is in a pet shop and Darryl says, "A puppy wouldn't be that hard to train Wanda."

She says, "O, really?

To which he responds, "It just takes patience. Look how well-behaved our kids are."

Then there is a loud crash and Darryl says, "Okay bad example."

Hammie runs up and says, "We just bought a tank of guppies." 

 I had to include that one as it reminded me of taking my kids to the grocery store - not something I did often, especially after one of them knocked down one of those towers of canned goods that stores used to have.

Do you have a favorite story of taking your kids to the store? Feel free to share it. And don't forget to leave your e-mail addy if you would like to be in the drawing for my Birthday Gift that I mentioned in Wednesday's post.

Monday Morning Musings

So, Governor Good-Hair as we sometimes refer to our esteemed Texas governor, has done it again. Rick Perry recently vetoed two bipartisan ethics bills and rescinded state funding for the prosecutors unit that is investigating his cancer research fund. 

In an article in The Dallas Morning News written by Christy Hoppe and Robert T Garrett of the Austin Bureau, Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice was quoted as saying, "Perry's office is an ethical black hole. Ethics reform goes in. Nothing comes out."

That is one black hole that needs to be closed up.
 

Perry also vetoed a bill that dealt with equal pay for women, saying that women have enough recourse in the Federal government for equal pay issues.

Umm, right. Like that is really working.

I think Perry's hair interfered with his brain when he vetored those bills, as well as one that dealt with truancy. A bill to put the responsibility on school districts to find ways to improve attendance among truant students before pursuing criminal charges was passed by the House, but Perry shot it down. Under the current program school districts can refer a student to court after three unexcused absences, and Texas is one of only two states in the country that prosecute truancy cases in adult court.

Really? What about family court? As any teacher and he or she can tell you that the number one problem with truancy starts on the home front. 

On the topic of NSA secret-leaker Edward Snowden, Dallas Morning News columnist, Jacquielynn Floyd, says that we do need to be concerned about what Snowden is possibly doing in China and how that affects our national security. However, she also says we need a serious discussion about "...balancing personal privacy and national security. And in that discussion we should all get to participate."

All in favor, raise your hands.

Yesterday I received one of those messages that authors just love to stumble across in their e-mail inbox. A reader contacted me to say how much she loved Boxes For Beds, my new historical mystery. In fact, she said she readthe book twice, and at first I thought she was the same person who had said that in a recent review on Amazon, but turns out she is not. To get that kind of affirmation for my work is such a thrill, but it is also very humbling because I know there are few books that I like well enough to read more than once. I am always so eager to get on to the next fictional adventure, I don't often go back to previous ones. I imagine that most readers are like that, too, so it means a lot to know that at least two people have liked the story well enough to give it a second read.

That's it for me for today. Leave a comment if you are so inclined and let me know what you are musing about on this Monday.

Fridays Odds and Ends

In a recent column in The Dallas Morning News, freelance writer Tracy Begland wrote about how the two sides of our brains work together to help us in our creative endeavors. Our left brain, which is the analytical side of our brain, and the creative right side are not at odds with each other, as some folks have suggested. Rather while we are doing things that engage our left brain, the right side is busy working on some creative question and we may get an answer to something that has been perplexing us.

As an example, she mentions how Arthur Fry, a 3M engineer, came to develop Post-it-Notes. He had heard about a weak glue from another researcher at a conference, then much later when he is annoyed at slips of paper that keep falling out of his hymnal at church, his right brain connects with his left brain and he makes the first sticky-note.

This works for writers, too. We have long known that we get some of the best ideas for stories in the shower, on a walk, or when we are doing something that has fully engaged our left brain. Then suddenly, eureka, something pops out from our right brain and we run dripping to our computer or tablet, or even a pen and paper.

Another interesting column I read in the newspaper was by Peter Orszag who posed the question, What if we had to vote? He was lamenting the poor voter turnout in the United States, and wondered if making voting mandatory would help. He included statistics from countries, such as Australia, that have mandatory voting, and voter turnout increased significantly. It jumped from 59 percent of eligible voters in 1922 to 91 percent in 1925, after mandatory voting was established. In countries that have mandatory voting, people are fined if they do not show up on election day.

While it would be nice to have more participation in the process, I'm not sure this is the way to go. We'd have to establish yet another government agency to oversee this, and do we really need one more?

On the other hand, it would be good to have a president elected by a majority of the adult population of the United States.

What do you think?

The District of Columbia is going through a process to qualify potential operators of medicinal marijuana dispensaries. Rodger Jones, editorial board member of The Dallas Morning News, is taking bets on whether "Obama comes out more forcefully for medical marijuana just before the election. If you think his immigration fiat will get him some votes, imagine the landslide if he declares an end to federal pot prohibition."

To end on a light note, here's a joke for you. Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

I'm Officially Old

The other day I mentioned to my husband that I hardly know any of the celebrities mentioned on entertainment shows or written about in the entertainment section of the newspaper. "I wonder if that is part of the official rite of passage for the Social Security set," I said.

He laughed and said he noticed the same thing. "I read the celebrity birthday announcements," he continued. "And I only recognize the names of people over 60."

I thought about sending a cartoon caption to "Plugger" -- the cartoon that is most recognized by "You know you're a Plugger if...." Sort of an old folks version of Jeff Foxworthy's "You know you're a Redneck if...."

Then I decided I would just use the topic for a blog post. Come up with some really funny lines about being old and wow everyone with my wit. But before I could do it, Steve Blow, a columnist for the Dallas Morning News, beat me to it. I've been a faithful reader of his columns for years - even the ten years I lived in Nebraska - and he has done some good ones. But this was one of his best. Maybe because the subject resonated so strongly with me. Or maybe because he's a damn fine writer. Or maybe both.

Regardless, you might want to Click over and read his column in which he asks, "How are they celebrities if I haven't heard of them?" It is well worth the read.

More on Tucker Max

Last week I wrote about the column about Tucker Max in the Dallas Morning News by Jaclyn Friedman, a writer and activist. She criticized him for promoting a sexual philosophy where women are "insulted, tricked, coerced, traded, and then discarded."

There was a flurry of responses to her column, some supporting her stance and others taking her to task. And I guess that is one of the benefits of living in the United States. We are free to voice an opinion, even a dissenting one.

Of all the letters that have filtered in to the Op/Ed section of the paper this week, one really stood out. It was written by a 17-year-old boy.

He wrote that he knows that as a teenage boy he is supposed to see Max as "the coolest guy in the world. But get real. Max is a user."

He went on to write, "The only thing sadder than his view on life is the women he exploits."

It did my heart good to read this young man's letter and know that there are teens out there who are not buying into the philosophy that Max is promoting. I'm glad that there are teens who realize that casual sex just for the thrill of it doesn't measure up to real love.

I just wish there were more of them and less of the ones who are following Max from venue to venue degrading themselves.

A Little Quiet Please

Recently in the Dallas Morning News, I read a wonderful column about the benefits of meditation. Erin Goldman of Dallas, a high school senior, wrote the piece and it touched me on many levels.

First, I could relate to what she wrote, "Meditation is more than sitting cross-legged on the floor in quiet darkness; it's an instrument for heightening awareness. My mind is perpetually churning. Thoughts, worries and fears pour into my head like a furious thunderstorm and leave me drenched. Meditation provides an umbrella."

I read that section several times, reminding myself that the words were written by a teenage girl, not a seasoned columnist who spent years perfecting a pleasant, engaging writing style.

Then I went outside, where I do my best meditating, content in the knowledge that the world of journalism is safe in the hands of young people like Erin. Not only is she bright and articulate, but she knows how to keep a balance in life. If we are never quiet, where do the profound thoughts come from?