It Takes A Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton

It Takes A Village

by

Hillary Rodham Clinton

In the 1990's,  while first lady,  Hillary Clinton wrote a book entitled It Takes A Village.  It was re-released ten years later.  I finished reading the 10th anniversary edition last night.  Many already realize that our nation's children are our greatest natural resource.  This non fiction book explores and addresses the effects of the various layers of environment on our next generation.  It points out what is right and what is wrong with how kids grow up in America.  What progress has been made with programs and legislation is pointed out along with areas that need further improvement.  It would be a great gift idea for baby showers, new grandparents and graduating educators.  It is a must read and a great re-read for all.  Please click on the author's name and book title above for more information.  And enjoy the music video that follows.  

On The Basis Of Sex

In the last year both a movie and a documentary have been released about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  We watched the documentary a couple months ago and then last month rented the movie from RedBox.  When I get discouraged about the direction my country is going things like these two films give me hope.  I highly recommend every one watch both features.  Not only are they entertaining and informative, they also are up lifting.  Trailers to both RBG (the documentary) and “On The Basis Of Sex” (the movie) follow.

Library Writing Group April 2019

Library Writing Group

April 2019

Something related to gas

    During  winter, one of the things that gives me a lift is a visit to an arboretum.  I especially enjoy Christmas time at Krohns Conservatory in Cincinnati as their “Poinsettia Express” display is delightful. This past winter I had a special treat the end of December when we visited Biosphere2 near Tucson, Arizona.  It was an outstanding experience to see its large domes and learn how the scientists, in cooperation with the University of Arizona, are studying various ecosystems inside the controlled environment the domes provide. Before moving to Ohio, I would visit the Fort Wayne Conservatory during winter.  I have been to the arboretum in MIlwaukee and to the one in Washington DC. To understand the lift I get from visiting these arboretums in mid-winter, we have to return to our grade school science texts. Phrases such as “the oxygen cycle”, “photosynthesis”, and “plant respiration” should remind us that in the winter, when plants are not leafed out,  and there is less of these sorts of processes happening, therefore there is less of our life giving oxygen around us. In fact, scientists have proven there is more carbon dioxide in our air during the winter. A visit to the arboretum which allows us to breathe deep in an oxygen rich environment boosts our spirits. Our air is made up of roughly 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen.  The rest of the air is made up of other gasses. But when we are in environments that have less oxygen than is optimal we don’t feel well. A good example of this is when we experience altitude sickness at higher altitudes. Many of us have felt queasy at high altitudes and perhaps even dizzy but people with altitude sickness can experience loss of sight, swelling of the body and brain or blood clots in the lungs or brain.  People with lung or heart disease also have low oxygen intake and can have symptoms such as a rapid heart rate, cough and shortness of breath.  Having air to breath, containing the oxygen we need, is necessary to not only maintain our health, but is also crucial to remain alive.

    With all this in mind,  you can see air pollution is a worldwide concern.  In the United States we measure outdoor air pollution as Air Quality Index or AQI.  It is an index of measurements of air conditions across the country based on concentrations of five major pollutants:  1) ground level ozone 2) Particles 3) Carbon Monoxide 4) sulfur dioxide and 5) nitrogen dioxide. Indoor air pollution has some of these same pollutants along with others such as 1) radon, 2) cigarette smoke, 3) volatile organic compounds, which are gasses released from burning fuels, 4)formaldehyde, and 5)asbestos.  According to the American Lung Association around 40% of the United State’s population is at risk for premature death as a result of long term exposure to air pollution. The World Health Association has come to the conclusion through studies that air pollution is a carcinogen to humans. We can reduce our risk to indoor air pollution with proper ventilation and adequate cleaning with safe products.  We can manage our exposure to outdoor air pollution by watching the AQI and not being out in times of heavy traffic. The World Health Organization states that nine out of ten people world wide breathe polluted air. They report 4.2 million deaths a year as a result of outdoor air pollution and 3.8 million deaths a year as a result of indoor air pollution. In fact, air pollution is the cause of one in eight deaths world wide.  It is the leading cause of common killers such as stroke, chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer and heart attack.   The United Nations has several programs we can support to work on improving the air quality of our planet.  One called “breathe life” can be found online at http://breathelife2030.org.  

    Speaking of ways to get involved in nature, while visiting Biospere2 I learned of a program called Nature’s Notebook which is project of the US National Phenology Network.  Phenology is “the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life.” They have observers, which are everyday people that watch and follow nature in their own backyards and record the information online.  This information is then used by scientists. To become involved learn more at https://www.usanpn.org/nn/why-observe.

For those that have frequent contact with a grandchild this would be a great project to work on together but it would also be fun to do alone as a retiree.  Involving ourselves out in the natural world often fosters a peacefulness within us. During spring we are more aware of the awakening world as things begin to warm and grow. Find your own way to connect with nature today.  And while doing so - take three deep breaths of fresh air

Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Where The Crawdads Sing

by

Delia Owens

My local, daytime, library book group selection for June is Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.   Beautifully written,  it is the happiest sad book I have ever read.  It is the story of a young girl named Kya, abandoned by her family, who learns to fend for herself in the coastal marshes of North Carolina.   The "proper" townspeople shun her and tell awful legends about her, but she does have people who reach out to her on the fringes of the small local community's society.  As I read I found myself rooting for Kya to survive and to flourish.  Her feelings and her surroundings were described in such exquisite detail that the book is almost more like a painting than a written work.   While I questioned whether or not the book was realistic, I allowed myself not to worry about that and just enjoy the story.   It is a fiction story and I didn't need it to be believable.  The book entertained me,  it kept me on the edge of my chair,  and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  For those that don't read,  a movie is in the works.   This is a novel that I will remember fondly and that will stay with me for a long time.  Please click on the author's name and book title above to follow the links to more information.  And enjoy the beautiful interview in the video that follows.  

Library Writing Group May 2019

Library Writer’s Group

May 2019

The First Year Of My Life

Me

Taken January 2017

Personal Autonomy - self-directing freedom and especially moral independence

~ Merriam Webster

  

How do I define the first year of my life? Is it the 12 months following my birth?  Or perhaps the first time, as a toddler, when I stomped my foot and made a fist and said firmly “Me do it!”.   Was it the first day of school? When I first got my driver's license or perhaps my nursing license? How about when I moved into my first apartment?  Clearly, when I think about the definition of “my life”, I think about becoming an independent individual or to put it another way, achieving autonomy. Without autonomy I am not living my life,  instead I am living an extension of another person’s life. Following birth, I was an extension of my parents, and later as I grew up, an extension of other relationships. It has been my experience that autonomy has been a fleeting accomplishment.  I achieve it, with my sails open and moving swiftly across the sea of life, only to become overcome by a vicious storm and luckily am thrown a lifeline by another, and am hauled back to port, coughing and sputtering and dripping wet.  

Philosophers have struggled to define “self” versus “other” since the late 1700s, but it was in the mid 20th century that Jean Paul Sartre wrote his work “In Being and Nothingness” in which he describes the “other” as providing an orientation and not a threat to the self.  Soon thereafter, Sartre’s student and lover, Simone de Beauvoir, a French woman, took his ideas further in her book The Second Sex to explain that men were designed by our society to be “the default” while women were delegated to be the “other”. This has made it more of a challenge for a woman to achieve autonomy.  Simone de Beauvoir wrote her book in 1949. Hopefully some progress has been made since then and young women have less of a struggle achieving some autonomy today.    

How do I mark the point when I achieved autonomy?  I have not, so I do not. There is no point in time where I can say I achieved autonomy.  Autonomy, for me, has been a gradual 

thing, akin to layers opening up, much like the pedals on a flower.  Autonomy is something that continues to this day to happen for me, bit by bit. So, every morning when I wake up,  I begin the the first year of my life.

A Flying Pig For Duchenne

Every spring Cincinnati has its Flying Pig Marathon.  There are events all weekend and on Saturday this year there was a 5k.  Since Parents Project for Muscular Dystrophy had partnered with the Flying Pig this year, I decided to walk the 5k.  My step daughter walked with me and my step granddaughter came to cheer us on.  To go to the link to my page that was used for my fundraiser and learn more click HERE.  But first let's enjoy a short video taken during the Saturday events.  Remember most people in attendance were not part of the PPMD fundraising efforts.  There were many fund raising efforts displayed in the various T-shirts worn by participants.

We had a great morning and while I did not meet my personal goal of walking the 5k in less than an hour I was close at an hour and 29 seconds.   Here are screen shots of my results.

I wanted to raise money for PPMD because I think there is no better place to put forth effort than in the fight against Duchenne.  Learn more about PPMD by clicking HERE.  And please take the time to watch the video that follows.  

My Fourth Annual OGS Conference Experience

The front of my program. 

Ten days ago I was enjoying my fourth annual Ohio Genealogical Society Conference.   The first year I was able to attend I was able to go three of the three and a half days because I was off work with a broken leg. The second and third years I was only able to make one day of the conferences due to my work schedule.  This year I was able to attend two days although I did not make the first workshops of the days.  Since I live near enough to commute to this year’s location I wandered in for Elissa Scalise Powell’s ten am workshop entitled “Hiding Behind Their Skirts: Finding Women’s Records”. You can find out more about Elissa at http://powellgenealogy.com/.   My first workshop after lunch was Lisa A. Alzo’s “Using Ethnic Newspapers and Publications in Your Genealogy Research”.  You can find out more about Lisa at https://www.lisaalzo.com/.  After that I was in Paula Stuart-Warren’s workshop “Manuscript Finding Aides: Locating Lost Midwestern Family Records”.  To learn more about Paula click on http://genealogybypaula.com/.   The last workshop I attended on Thursday was presented by Drew Smith and was called “Link Your Tools: Files, Notes, Tasks, and Trees”.  To learn more about Drew go to https://ahaseminars.com/.   I arrived on Friday morning in time for Peggy Lauritzen’s “Plain Folk: Researching Amish and Mennonite Families”.  Peggy can be found online at this link https://misspeggy55.weebly.com/. After lunch on Friday I attended Janice Sellers program entitled “Jewish Genealogy: How Is This Research Different From Other Research”.  Find out more about Janice here http://www.janicesellers.com/AncestralDiscoveries/PGenealogist.html.  My next workshop was John M Barr’s “Unlocking Families Using Land Records In The NorthWest Territory”. John’s website is at   https://oldnorthwestgenealogy.com/ .  I finished up Friday with Lisa Louise Cooke’s workshop on “How to Use YouTube for Family History”.  She can be found online at https://lisalouisecooke.com/.  A great deal of learning was packed into those two days and since I bought the syllabus book I have outlines of all the workshops that were given the entire conference.  If you are interested in genealogy one of the many enjoyable ways to learn more about it is to attend a conference and Ohio’s Conference is a great one to go to.  Enjoy the video below from last year’s conference

Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

Black Water Rising

by

Attica Locke

The daytime library book group in the town where I live and which I attend,  has selected for its May book Black Water Rising by Attica Locke.  I listened to it on audio and the narrator did a good job.  The book has excellent subject matter.  It is a novel that involves the Civil Rights Movement and covers such topics as the deaths of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark who were killed by Chicago  Police.  Read more about that  HERE.  And the hiding of oil by oil companies in the late 1970s.  Read  more  about the oil crisis that took place then  HERE.  It is a mystery and I did not figure out the ending before it happened.  Normally I don't care for mysteries because I solve them early on in the book.  But this novel was so involved that I was lost trying to follow what exactly was going on.  I couldn't put the pieces together at all and found myself frustrated.  It jumped between a few different time frames and various relationships.  As a result I was frustrated for much of the book and found myself wishing it was over rather frequently.  Then the last quarter of the book it came together for me and I have to say I do like the book.  Unfortunately, it was such a chore for me to get through that I hesitate to recommend it to anyone else.  It is a book that covers important topics and is well written.  The author is very good with  descriptions.  While it was hard for me to finish I think it is an excellent selection for a book group because it is filled with important topics to discuss.  It is worth sticking it out but not for the faint hearted.   Please click on the authors name and the book title above to follow the links to learn more.  And enjoy the video that follows.