hedgehog
hedgehog's Journal"An important piece of jewelry" "a statement piece"
What makes a piece of jewelry important? What is it saying?
About those underemployed millennials -
there is a matching flip side to this problem - in real terms, too many of their parents are making the same as or less than they were paid 30 years ago!
My husband makes good money compared to most. He's gotten raises every year he's worked. But, looking back - those raises were equal to or less than inflation rates - so he's really right where he started! We're still ahead of most because so many have had to take lower paying jobs!
This isn't a competition - it breaks my heart that I can't be of more assistance to my millennial children!
Anyone ever have a suspicious mole checked out?
What I'm afraid of is being told it looks odd, then being told to come back in two weeks for a biopsy, then being told to come back again to have it removed. This is a small mole that I think has taken an odd turn. What are the chances that it will simply be removed and biopsied if the doctor agrees with me?
Catholic hospitals - some background and a modest proposal -
First - often times there is a difference between actual Catholic teachings and practices at Catholic Hospitals in the US. Going back to the early 20th century, the movement to make birth control easily obtainable was entwined with the eugenics movement; some backers felt birth control was the only way to protect the proper Anglo-Saxons from the extreme fertility of the immigrants from Southern and eastern Europe, as well as from the poor whites. Oftentimes, poor mothers delivered at hospitals only when hours of at-home labor were futile. It is possible that often the only way to save the mother's life and deliver the baby was to crush the baby's skull. However, when Harvard trained doctors had no trouble delivering healthy babies to upper class women, and tended to deliver a dead child to poor women, it should be easy to see how suspicions would arise. At the other end of life - there was a suspicion that wealthy doctors didn't allowed poor patients to die unnecessarily because they couldn't pay for treatment. As a result, the custom in many Catholic hospitals is to go beyond actual Church teachings in terms of protecting an unborn fetus and offering end-of-life care.
(Sidebar: I have heard my poor white, rural, Protestant in-laws express the same suspicions - that doctors save the best care for wealthier patients. At the other end of life, there is often a suspicion that some people are being allowed to die. As a result, families often are unwilling to let go and to demand extreme measures to ensure that their loved one is properly cared for. )
Second -where did Catholic hospitals come from? Originally, they were founded and staffed by women who voluntarily chose a life of poverty and service. These women followed the immigrant Catholic communities to build hospitals to take care of the poor at no charge. At times changed, these hospitals have evolved into institutions run by very well paid lay people. They charge as much or more as any other hospital. Across America, local hospitals are being absorbed into large health care groups, oftentimes one that is ostensibly "Catholic", meaning that all local hospitals may follow the dictates of the local Catholic bishop (regardless of whether he actually understands Catholic ethics!)
That said - abortion and contraception are forbidden by Church teachings. But - as Pope Francis is reminding people, there is more to Church teachings than abortion and birth control -
So - a modest proposal -
Any hospital may call itself a Catholic Hospital and follow Catholic Church teachings regarding patient care
provided
that such institution also follow Church teachings on economic matters - and prove that by capping all salaries at the median salary of local general practitioners. Further, no patient should ever be driven into bankruptcy and/or poverty because of a hospital bill!
Sign of the times: My grandson was baptized in the Episcopal church yesterday:
In attendance:
Mother: raised Roman Catholic, studying to be an Episcopal priest
Father: Inactive roman Catholic
Grandparents: Roaming catholics, attending an Episcopal parish
Grandparents: Roman Catholic
Godfather: Uncle/ RC
Godmother: Aunt/ Very active RC
Great-great aunt : Methodist
Great-grandfather & two great uncles: UCC
Great grandfather: Very active RC
Aunt and Uncle: Lutheran (on her church board) and RC husband who is now going to her church
Aunt and Uncle: Inactive RC
Aunt: Declared atheist, living a life of poverty and good works; think 21st century sister.
Smiles and laughter:tons
Wailing and gnashing of teeth: none.
God bless John XXIII!
"Black Friday flurry as UK retailers push discounts"
A flurry of promotions tied to Black Friday have been causing a frenzy for some UK retailers, with a fight breaking out in one Asda shop apparently over discounted televisions.
Asda, owned by the US consumer giant Wal-Mart, has half a million products on offer.
US shops traditionally offer big discounts on the Friday after the US Thanksgiving holiday.
These offers have been increasingly common in the UK in recent years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25154497
Meet Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.):
WASHINGTON — A Tennessee congressman who supports billions of dollars in cuts to the food stamp program is one of the largest recipients of federal farm subsidies, according to new annual data released by a Washington environmental group.
Using Agriculture Department data, researchers at the Environmental Working Group found that Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican and a farmer from Frog Jump, Tenn., collected nearly $3.5 million in subsidies from 1999 to 2012. The data is part of the research group’s online farm subsidy database, from which the group issues a report each year.
In 2012 alone, the data shows, Mr. Fincher received about $70,000 in direct payments, money that is given to farmers and farmland owners, even if they do not grow crops. It is unclear how much Mr. Fincher received in crop insurance subsidies because the names of people receiving the subsidies are not public. The group said most of the agriculture subsidies go to the largest, most profitable farm operations in the country. These farmers have received $265 billion in direct payments and farm insurance subsidies since 1995, federal records show.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/politics/farm-subsidy-recipient-backs-food-stamp-cuts.html?_r=0
Tennessee ranks among the top seven states for food stamp use, followed by Alabama and Georgia, according to the Pew Charitable Trust. About 20 percent of Tennessee's population receives food stamps
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/nov/02/food-stamp-cuts-hit-home/
More here: http://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=TN08&progcode=total&yr=mtotal
Turkey - baste or steam?
I'm old fashioned and holding out for basting - my son insists that placing a pan of water to provide steam is better.
I think I just came up with my argument - the basting provides the drippings for gravy.
Pie crust for vegetarians?
I always made my pie crust using lard and butter. I need an alternate to the lard. I don't want to use any hydrogenated vegetable oils ( Crisco), so I'm looking for a natural shortening solid at room temperature. I was thinking coconut oil, but the consensus here is that the coconut flavor will come through.
Any suggestions?
"Heavens, Mary, we'll laugh again....It's just that we'll never be young again."
For indivduals as for epochs the process of aging is normally a quiet and gradual affair, but the realization of youth having passed comes often as not with a suddenness, even a shock. Most of us, I suspect, mark that moment well and often thereafter in idle passages find ourselves touching the wound it left. My moment, and that of many like me, came with the death of Kennedy, and along with the others, I knew it. About the third day of that long, terrible time Mary McGrory said to me, "We'll never laugh again." And I answered, "Heavens, Mary, we'll laugh again. It's just that we'll never be young again." And I really knew that: knew it in recesses of the mind from which memories rarely return save in just such moments. I found myself at one point before a television camera being asked by a gentle and thoughtful Negro journalist did I think the dreams of the New Frontier would ever be realized, and I replied, thinking of nothing, and looking nowhere, that I was reminded of the passage from the Tempest, "We are such stuff as dreams are made of," and asked did he recall that that passage began with the words, "Our revels now are ended." Which was all I had to say. My mind for the moment stopped, and it was only weeks later, seeing a transcript of what I had said, that I realized I did not in fact know how Prospero began that soliloquy. Not fortune, nor pain, nor yet the fiercest will could have wrung it from me. Only the realization of a youth having passed summoned it forth, which is to say summoned a power that was there but was not being used.
Daniel P. Moynihan
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/11/4/moynihan-assesses-the-role-of-architecture/
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Gender: FemaleHometown: Oswego County, New York
Home country: USA
Current location: Lake Ontario Snow Belt
Member since: Fri Apr 23, 2004, 11:56 PM
Number of posts: 36,286
