3 Ring Binder

Thursday morning, son not a homeowner;  Thursday afternoon -  a homeowner! Thursday morning, daughter a wearer of braces;  Thursday afternoon - NOT a wearer of braces! Saturday morning, other daughter a 17 year-old;  later Saturday morning, an 18 year-old!

Yesterday’s New York Times reported on the newly proposed automobile fuel-economy standards and the automakers who begrudgingly love them. I couldn’t help but notice the report was full of package deals, fallacies, and wiggle words. Still, the industry’s meek acceptance of what are considered extremely challenging fuel-economy goals is a marked retreat from years past, when the companies argued that consumers would not be willing to pay for the technology needed to meet higher mileage requirements. “The auto companies’ level of vitriol and rhetoric has changed,” said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, a group that works to mitigate global warming. “We welcome all epiphanies.” Vitriol and Rhetoric Hate speech. That’s what most people think of when they hear those two words together.  While vitriol is language using bitterly abusive feeling or expression , rhetoric is the art of using language effectively . Putting the two together does not make either a for...

It’s not as if we came from the BIG city, but moving from an (in)famous city to a little town brought its share of culture shock.  Where was the Home Depot, the WalMart, the hospital? Sure, I can get to those staples of civilization if I need them, but they are all now just a little further away than may warrant the trip. With the exception of banks and gas stations – of which our little town has an inordinate proliferation – I needed to satisfy my consumerist urges with a paltry few mom & pop stores with their limited selection and high prices. I’ve gotten used to this inconvenience over the years. Then came last Saturday. Starting out as any typical Saturday, we made our early morning trip to the dump [n.b. Curbside trash pick-up is one more of the shocking shortcomings of small town life to which I have not only grown accustomed but begun to embrace. While you must make the trip to the dump, you can do so three times a week and not have to accumulate particularly smelly th...

Paperself via SwissMiss Tokyo Lash Bar Carlashes via Design Fetish

There's nothing to it! On Saturday afternoon I attended a POSE/barefoot running seminar given by Drew Wallace of Upstream Fitness at my CrossFit gym . For those of you who weren't on the East Coast or who may have a very short memory, Saturday afternoon temperatures hit over 100 degrees with major humidity. You might say that even when I'm having a good time this kind of weather turns me nasty. Add in a little bitterness due to some cross-scheduling of Girls Night Out with a previously planned and pre-paid seminar, and a little grumbling about my least favorite physical activity in the world and you have the makings of a miserable afternoon.  And yet, somehow, I enjoyed myself. I really dislike running because, let's face it, I suck at it. But when you think about it, how can someone be so bad at something they've been doing naturally all their lives? The problem is that from around the time running became about more than a way to get from the swing set to the s...

As a fan of 1950s housewifery,   I find myself particularly attracted to Ayn Rand's explanation of why someone might find the idea of taxing the rich so compelling. " If an average housewife struggles with her incomprehensibly shrinking budget and sees a tycoon in a resplendent limousine, she might well think that just one of his diamond cuff links would solve all her problems." It's an understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. No one tells her that higher taxes imposed on the rich (and the semi-rich) will not come out of their consumption expenditures, but out of their investment capital (i.e., their savings); that such taxes will mean less investment, i.e., less production, fewer jobs, higher prices for scarcer goods; and that by the time the rich have to lower their standard of living, hers will be gone, along with  her  savings and her husband’s job—and no power in the world (no  economic   power) will be able to revive the dead industries (there ...

1)  My daughter's friend has been keeping up with her Dr. Who obsession. She made her TARDIS earrings as a party favor for her own birthday party. Awesome. 2)  I've been reading, reading, reading to stay on top of my three book clubs. We read Galt's Speech, two supporting essays, then met to discuss it with friends for my Atlas Shrugged Reading Group. I finished The Help for a neighborhood book club this week and am reading the Koran and Spencer commentary for another discussion group. 3)  No kids Saturday night: date night at home. There is nothing quite as wonderful as date night at home. I wonder, though: when all the kids have permanently moved out, will our time home alone be as sweet? Certainly the stolen moments aspect of it will be absent, but I plan to make the concentrated time together every bit as appreciated. I don't imagine it will be terribly difficult, but it will be somewhat different.

Hyperopia: n. An abnormal condition of the eye in which vision is better for distant objects than for near objects. It results from the eyeball being too short from front to back, causing images to be focused behind the retina; farsightedness. Myopia: n. A visual defect in which distant objects appear blurred because their images are focused in front of the retina rather than on it; nearsightedness. These are distinct, and in fact, opposite eye defects, both of which, oddly, I have.   My right eye is myopic and my left, hyperopic and amblyopic (i.e. wicked frigin' lazy ) but, more importantly, even at my ripe old age, I just found out there may be some therapy to slightly improve it! I made the picture small for your intestinal convenience. After the series (2) of right eye bleeds – subconjuctival hemorrhages – I needed to get a complete eye exam to check out what exactly the hell was going on in there! Turns out, nothin...

Two articles in today’s Boston Globe: Evergreen Solar Inc. , the once promising alternative energy company that received millions in state subsidies, warned late Monday that its shares will likely be worth little or nothing even if it is able to strike a deal with creditors to restructure its debt. ___ Three years ago, Evergreen opened a gleaming 450,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Devens, a former military base in central Massachusetts, promising to create hundreds of new jobs. Governor Deval Patrick’s administration awarded the company $58 million in tax breaks and other aid, one of the largest state incentive packages in recent years, to help persuade Evergreen to expand here and jump-start the state’s alternative energy sector. Worthless A study released by Governor Deval Patrick’s administration this week said the prospects for job growth, lower energy bills, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions justify state-mandated investment by utilities - a projected $5.37 billion t...

After ten days away, we arrived home Sunday afternoon. By we , I mean me, my husband, and our two daughters – one soon to be 18, and one just turned 13.  I mention their ages because it’s important to note that these girls aren't small children requiring constant supervision, but more or less independent people, each able to make fairly sophisticated decisions about her own well-being on a small scale. Or so I thought. Now I grant you, the vacation we took was not a typical family vacation in that Stephen and I went to participate in the classes and general sessions offered by the annual Objectivist Conference . This meant we were engaged for much of the day apart from one another, but still, we were staying at the Marriot Harbor Beach Resort & Spa , a beautiful resort on the Atlantic, not Ed’s roadside motel.  We were on the beach, with a huge pool complex, complete with canopy bed-like loungers, lounge chairs, umbrellas, two chair cabanas, a Starbucks and wireless inte...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Brave men with a radical plan. What has become of their vision?