Bloganoia

Dear George,

While I don’t think I’m any more paranoid than the next guy, I do have occasional small episodes of unrealistic suspicion and fear about this or that. Lately these have become more centered on the Internet. The more experience I’ve had with my blog, the edgier I’ve become about where these postings go and who gets them. Even though my blog is set up a publicly available, I naively think that it’s going mostly to family and friends. But that’s an unfounded assumption. I became acutely aware of this when I wrote a satirical piece about a local cemetery, then got back a lengthy e-mail response from the cemetery’s president within 24 hours. One of my knowledgeable friends explained that many organizations pay a fee to automatically receive any web content that mentions their name. A few weeks later I wrote a humorous account of my first year of college, then discovered that the college Alumni Association had referred it to thousands of readers. I posted a story about my hometown, and the president of the Chamber of Commerce replied. Most recently I heard back from the great grandson of a man who I’d described as committing a violent criminal act. All of this seems harmless enough, but it does make me nervous about writing for an unknown, hard-to-predict audience.

My wariness was reinforced when I read recently in the New York Times about government efforts at Internet surveillance. It’s pretty well-known that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) monitors the Internet for information about potential threats to public safety, e.g., terrorist attacks. What's not well known is that the DHS also monitors political reactions to government proposals that have "homeland security implications" or "reflect adversely on the U.S. government." According to the Times (1-13-12), a nonprofit advocacy group used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain nearly 300 pages of documents about the DHS's monitoring program. In a 2009 test, the Department paid a contractor to monitor the Facebook postings, Twitter messages, blog content, and reader comments about a Washington Post article by the residents of Standish, MI, to see how the residents were reacting to a proposal to move Guantanamo Bay prisoners to a local prison. The contractor recorded personal identifying information from Facebook, Twitter, etc., but didn’t include such information in the final reports. For example, a quote from Twitter would refer to "a Twitter user" rather than citing a specific person by name. Asked about the Standish report, a DHS spokesperson said it was simply an example and had been removed from their handbook because it “does not meet our operational requirements or privacy standards” which “expressly prohibit reporting on individuals’ First Amendment activities.” However, even if Homeland Security says they are not out to get me personally, it still worries me. (Dear Homeland Security monitor: If you are analyzing this paragraph, it’s all just in fun.)

Every once in a while I Google my own name to see what turns up. When I did this recently, the first hit was a web-site I’d never heard of which says it is designed to help people “find and connect with one another.” From it I learned that I was a married, Protestant, white male in my mid-70’s, with a Democrat political preference. It listed my wife and son by name; gave an aerial photo, street location, and appraisal value of our house in Clifton, as well as listing the monetary values of all my individual neighbor’s houses in a two-block radius. My life style interests were specified as including: owns dogs, enjoys the outdoors, likes music, reads about world news and politics, cares about healthy living, is a collector, collects antiques, and enjoys family activities and reading. It also says I am sensitive, intuitive, desirous of security and comfort, clingy, protective, value marriage, and have trouble letting things go. Most of these are spot on, and my impression is that the web-site has broader knowledge of me than do many of my acquaintances (or even myself in one or two instances). I tried searching the site for a dozen family members and friends. Except for our three-year-old grandchildren, everyone else was listed there, with varying amounts of personal and mostly accurate information. The facts I found about myself are just a teaser of what’s available through the site. If I pay them $2.95 a month I can find out my own or anybody else’s exact age, phone number, e-mail address, occupation, education, detailed financial information, detailed property information, economic health rating, and information about the person from 81 social media sites (e.g., Facebook, Google+). Perhaps this amazingly well-informed site sometimes actually does help people “connect” with one another. But it also helps marketers, real estate agents, prospective employers, banks and credit agencies, snoopy neighbors, online suitors, identity theft criminals, probation officers, mothers-in-law, newspaper reporters, and a wide range of others who may be “connecting” in less than preferred fashions. No wonder I’m feeling more paranoid.

Love,

Dave

SOURCE: New York Times, "Federal contractor monitored social network sites," Jan. 13, 2012) (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/us/federal-security-program-monitored-public-opinion.html)

G-mail Comments

-Gayle C-L (3-19): David, Pretty amazing. They are watching you for sure. You better be careful! Lol. G

Little Yellow Beauties and Their Shocking Secret

Dear George,

We never had much of a winter this year. It’s in the high seventies today, and the odds of a late March blizzard are rapidly disappearing. The first wildflowers have suddenly popped up in Burnet Woods. They are pretty little eight-petalled yellow flowers that grow in big sprawling patches. They’re the most visible marker of spring’s arrival in our neighborhood, and, for me, they always elicit feelings of happiness, relief, and well-being. Here’s how these sweeties are looking this week.

My parents were ardent wildflower fans, cataloguing every plant they could find in Menominee County and surroundings. I decided I couldn’t just post photos of pretty yellow flowers without at least finding out what they are. It just took moments on the Internet to discover that these are Fig Buttercups (also known as Lesser Celandine). The shock was that horticulturists absolutely hate Fig Buttercups. One Plant Conservation website classifies them in the “Least Wanted” category. The Fig Buttercup is native to Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. It was brought to the U.S. as an ornamental plant. The problem is that the those clever little Fig Buttercups escaped and spread across the northeast from New Hampshire to Wisconsin. It reproduces and spreads rapidly before any of the native early spring wildflowers appear, e.g., trilliums, bloodroot, wild ginger, twinleaf, and many others. Because the Fig Buttercup takes over areas so completely, it often wipes out the other early spring wildflowers. I’m having a difficult time assimilating this. I still think Fig Buttercups warm one’s heart. However, we grew up in our family worshipping the sacred Trillium, and, if the Fig Buttercup is its arch-enemy, I’m going to have to rethink my priorities.

Love,

Dave

G-mail Comments

-Sue P. (3-16): Hi L’s, Just wanted to say Happy Chinese Bells Day! Beautiful weather here but no Spring flowers as of yet. We will have Trillium soon but after 18 years here near the river I still can't find any Arbutus. My one wish is to smell that lovely flower once more before I die. Love to you, Sue

-Jennifer M (2-16): It's really disconcerting, isn't it? They are beautiful, but represent something so bad. Kind of like this wonderfully mild winter and beautiful spring--beautiful, but reminding us of global warming.

-Phyllis S-S (3-15): Dave, How lovely they are. But- they fore our trilliums? I love trillium. When I was a kid a few days before May 1 we all went to the city park and picked wildflowers - a wide variety- made paper cones of paper and left them on the porches of our best friends - rang the bell and ran. Then the city/state outlawed picking wildflowers and it was done…. Best, Phyllis

Hey, Where'd That Baby Come From?

Dear George,

I don’t understand all this political fuss about contraception. It’s like we’ve fallen into a time warp and returned to the early 60’s. Whatever the case, it has reminded me othat Katja was a pioneer of sorts in the whole birth control enterprise. The pill was developed in the 1950’s and initially tested on women in Puerto Rico in 1956. In May 1960 the FDA approved its use in the U.S. Katja and I got married that year and moved to Ann Arbor which turned out to be one of the early sites for American distribution and further testing of the pill. Katja signed up for the research as soon as they announced it. Our fantasy at the time was that she was the very first mainland user of the pill, but that’s not exactly true. Actually, the first U.S. research was done in Massachusetts. Katja did agree to being a research subject as part of her receiving the pill. We’d go over to the local Planned Parenthood clinic which occupied a second floor suite down a narrow alley near downtown. It was dark and secluded, with just a tiny sign near the door, a sort of secret, back alley place. I’d escort Katja up to the reception area, then go back downstairs and wait in the shadows, smoking cigarettes and fidgeting. I was nervous about Katja being a test subject for such a new, powerful drug, but she was fearless.

The pill, of course, was revolutionary in that it provided women newfound security and unprecedented control over pregnancy. Katja took the pill faithfully during our stay in Ann Arbor, then continued when we moved to Cincinnati for my university job. After a couple of years we went to a holiday party for grad students and faculty at our close friends Clyde and Ann M’s apartment. In the midst of the revelry, Katja quieted the crowd and said she had something important to tell everybody. She paused, blushed a bit, then came forth with her stirring announcement: “Nobody knows this yet, but I’m pregnant!” The group broke into applause. Nobody was more astonished than I. “But you’re on the pill,” I stammered. “No I’m not,” Katja said. “I stopped taking it months ago.” She reminded me that I’d suggested that we might want to think about adding maternity insurance to our university health insurance plan. She’d taken that as a cue that I thought it was time for us to have a baby. I mildly protested that perhaps we could have talked about it more explicitly. But Katja was certain that I would be happy. I mulled it over and decided I was.

Though she wasn’t enthusiastic about being pregnant in and of itself, Katja gritted her teeth and nature proceeded on course. Katja ate lots of pickles and chocolate ice cream. We went to natural childbirth classes every Tuesday night, and I was trained to help Katja regulate her breathing. When the moment finally arrived, we rushed off to Christ Hospital. I sat next to Katja’s bedside, repeating “breathe, breathe” as I’d been taught to do. “I am breathing, God*** it!” Katja shouted. The doctor decided it might be better if I retire to the waiting room. Katja was in there for a long time, sixteen hours in all. When she saw women being carted off to give birth who she knew had arrived after she, she’d holler out, “It’s my turn, it’s my turn!” Finally it was her turn, and, before we knew it, there was our tiny infant son. We’d debated between Barnaby and J*** if it were a son. I thought Barnaby had a lot of pizzazz, but Katja went for J***. We soon learned that her decision to discontinue the pill was the best of all times. Since it takes me forever to work through these big questions, it’s good that somebody opted to take action.

Contraception has advanced a lot since those early days, and there are many facts relevant to the current debate about health insurance coverage. Below are some of the details I’ve run across (the numbers in parentheses refer to sources listed at end). There are, of course, complex issues about religious freedom and women’s health rights. Nonetheless, I think one can make a strong case that all women should have access to contraception covered by their health insurance.

Love,

Dave

• Each year in the US there are about 4 million births, 1 million miscarriages or stillbirths, and 1.2 abortions. About 50% of pregnancies in the US are unintended. (5)
• Rates of unintended pregnancies per 1000 women per year vary by racial/ethnic group: 35, Non-Hispanic whites; 98, African Americans; 78 Hispanics. These differences correspond closely to patterns of contraception use. (5)
• On average, US women want only two children. To achieve this outcome, women must use contraceptives for roughly three decades. (3)
• Over 99% of US women of child-bearing age (15-44) who have ever had sexual intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method during their lives. This rate is virtually identical for Catholic women (98%). 93% of sexually experienced US women have relied on male condom use. 82% have used the pill. (5)
• 68% of sexually experienced Catholic women of child-bearing age, 73% of Mainline Protestants, and 74% of Evangelicals are using highly effective methods of contraception (i.e.., sterilization, the pill or another hormonal method, or the IUD). (2)
• More than 40% of Evangelicals rely on male or female sterilization, the highest rate among the various religious groups. (2)
• The most frequently used contraceptive methods by US women (2006-2008) are: the pill (28%), tubal sterilization (27%), male condoms (16%), vasectomy (10%), IUD (6%), and withdrawal (5%). (3)

· According to a recent CBS New Poll (May 2010) 52% of the public believes that the birth control pill has been one of the country's most significant medical developments; has made women's lives better (56%; vs. 9% worse), has made it easier for women to have careers (57%; vs. 1% harder); has made American family life better (50%; vs. 11% worse); can be used safely (64%; vs. 25%, No); and is effective (85%; vs. 5%, No). (1)

• Typical-use failure rates (i.e., unintended pregnancy) over a 12-month period vary by type of contraceptive: spermicides, 29.0%; periodic abstinence, 25.3%; withdrawal, 18.4%; male condom, 17.4%; pill, 8.7%; male and female sterilization, less than 1%. (5)
• Contraceptive choices vary sharply by age. The pill is the leading method for women under 30. Women 30 and older rely more on sterilization. (3)
• The costs of birth control vary by method, insurance coverage, and the type of drug or device. Recent estimates from US News (Mar. 5, 2012) are: the pill, $160-$600 per year; birth control patch, $160-$600 per year; condoms, averaging $150 per year; diaphragm, $60 a year, plus the initial doctor’s visit ($20-$200); IUDs, upfront cost of $500-$1,000, then $100 per year; sterilization, $1,500-$6,000. (4)
• Federal employees are guaranteed insurance coverage for contraceptives. (3)
• 90% of employer-based insurance plans cover a full range of prescription contraceptives (three times as many who did so a decade ago). (3)
• 27 states have laws requiring insurers to provide coverage for the full range of contraceptive drugs and devices approved by the FDA. (3)
• 
  

SOURCES:

(1) CBS News Poll, "The Birth Control Pill: 50 Years Later." (www.cbsnews.com)

(2) Guttmacher Institute. “Contraceptive use is the norm among religious women” (Apr. 13, 2011) (www.guttmacher.org)

(3) Guttmacher Institute. “In Brief: Fact Sheet (June 2010)” (www.guttmacher.org)

(4) US News and World Report. “The Real Cost of Birth Control” (www.money.usnews.com)

(5) US Dept. of Health & Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Use of Contraception in the United States: 1982-2008.” (www.cdc.gov)

G-mail Comments

-Gayle C-L (3-11): David, You are too much. I apologize for not responding to your letters ( which I Love ) But thankfully I have been very busy w the Princeton Spring Market. Finally closing some long over do properties. Lets talk soon. Lots of love... G

Tuesday Was Super, But Not So Much For Democrats

Dear George,

The Ohio primary was titillating for the Republicans, but pretty bland for the Democrats. Katja and I never fail to vote, so we did so again this time. But, even though we were there at a prime time, we only saw one other voter at the usually bustling polling place. The state’s overall turnout was a meager 25%, and I’ll bet it was still lower for Democratic voters. Even if irrelevant, we were happy to give our expression of electoral support to Barack Obama, as well as to our U.S. Senator, Sherrod Brown, who was also running unopposed in the primary. The only contested national Democratic race of any consequence on our ballot was to decide on the candidate to run for the U.S. House seat for our district. That seat is currently occupied by a popular long-time Republican politician from the city’s West Side. I guess the Democrats decided they had no chance against the incumbent since the two party nominees were both unknowns who have never held political office. One had previously lost a couple of elections for a state office and was strongly Pro-Life. He didn’t enthuse us much. The second, who was unemployed and hadn’t completed college, said he was running because he was fed up from years and years of writing complaints to the White House and not getting anything back but form letters. I suggested to Katja that we grit our teeth and go with the Pro-Life guy which is what we did. There were three or four contested judicial races, but, despite our good intentions, we always fail to get informed about the judges. As usual, I just sort of guessed, though Katja told me afterward I’d made a big mistake on one of them.

The authorities reportedly made it a little easier to switch party affiliations in Ohio’s primary this year. Supposedly the pollworkers were instructed to issue challenges only if they had personal information that voters belonged to the other party. It would have been more interesting and fun to vote in the Republican primary, but I was scared to lie and thought it unethical anyway. The Obama campaign put all of its resources in Ohio into defeating Romney, but not a penny against Santorum. I guess they would much rather run against Santorum than Romney in November. If I had voted in the Republican primary, I don’t think I could have brought myself to vote for Santorum, even if it were helping Obama. And Gingrich is even more offensive. I guess I would have voted for Ron Paul. He’s the most entertaining, and I actually find myself agreeing with something he says every once in a while.

I wrote down my predictions on Tuesday morning when I started working on this blog post: Romney, 39%; Santorum, 35%; Gingrich, 15%; Paul, 11%. I was a little over-optimistic about Romney and Paul – the final results were: Romney, 38%; Santorum, 37%; Gingrich, 14%; Paul, 9%; Perry and Huntsman, 1% each. Romney did best in Ohio’s big cities and their suburbs (e.g., Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, etc.). Santorum swept Ohio’s small towns and rural areas, a big chunk of the state. It was a narrow numerical victory for Romney, who’d been behind by two digits a couple of weeks beforehand, but less than impressive, given that he spent four times as much as all his other opponents combined. In our district’s House race the Pro-life guy beat the angry letter-writing guy, 50.5% to 49.5%, testimony to voters’ great acumen. In the other Cincinnati area district a four-time female Republican House incumbent was upset by a first-time candidate, allegedly because the Republican faithful were offended when she kissed Barack Obama on the cheek before his State of the Union address. In the House Democratic primary in that same district a well-known candidate was upset by a nominee that no Democratic party official had ever met or heard of, who had spent zero money on the campaign, had not responded to any newspaper requests for information, had never given an interview, and who had no known platform. The paper called him “the mystery candidate.” Apparently the Democrats are leaning, not only to candidates with no political experience, but to candidates with no public identity whatsoever. In the meantime, the Republicans have been counting on their partisan legislative redistricting of the state to give a huge advantage to Republican candidates and, in some cases, to pit incumbent Democratic congresspersons against one another in the primary. They’re undoubtedly cheering since their redistricting succeeded in getting rid of Dennis Kucinich, one of the U.S. House’s most vocal anti-war liberals. I guess the upshot of all this is that the four Republican presidential contenders will all remain in the race, continuing to pick one another apart, and damaging the chances of whoever winds up as the survivor for the general election. Ohio will be very important again in November. Our various relatives on the East and West coasts remain very nervous about the Buckeye State. I don’t blame them. It’s a strange, mysterious place.

Love,

Dave

G-mail Comments

-JML (3-8): I was really rooting for Santorum. Oh well.

Snow Lives

A jolly snowman in Clifton’s Burnet Woods, Cincinnati (Feb. 2010)

Dear George,

This has been Cincinnati’s least wintry winter since 1919. We’ve only gotten 4 inches of snow so far, about ten inches less than normal for this time of year (and about fifty inches less than my home town of Menominee). We didn’t get our first real storm of the season till almost New Years. It started as rain, then turned to snow and sleet, and, with temperatures dropping well below freezing, our sidewalks wound up as slick as glass. I couldn’t take the dogs out the back door because I couldn’t stand up on the driveway, so we went out via the front porch and walked on the grass. It was hazardous and unpleasant, though it brought back many memories. Growing up in Michigan’s U.P., snow was a major part of our lives from November to late March every year. And snow was a substantially different experience in childhood and adolescence than in decades that followed. What strikes me is how one’s changing experiences of snow reflect the larger dramatic changes that occur over one’s life span. Here’s what comes to mind.

My mom Doris and I on the Green Bay shore (circa 1940)

When I was a little kid, snow was amazing and a source of endless adventures. We lived on the second floor of a two-story white frame house on Ogden Avenue in Menominee, just west of the Interstate Bridge, and my friend Sally F. lived with her parents on the first floor. When winter snowfalls came, our mothers would take Sally and I over to the Tourist Information Lodge a block away on Ogden Ave., and we’d sled down the steepest hill in the Twin Cities. When you’re four years old, the Tourist Lodge hill is like Mount Everest. Our moms would tow the sleds back up for us each time, but we were in sole charge on the way down. Once we started kindergarten Sally and I would hike the half-mile to Boswell School by ourselves each morning. In the winter we’d be bundled up in snowsuits, boots, mittens, and hats, and sludge our way through the snow and ice. Sally’s dad’s Boiler Works was midway in our journey along Ogden Ave., and we’d stop in to get warmed up by the potbelly stove in the front office. We thought winter was otherworldly.

Ice Shoves, Green Bay, Menominee, MI (postcard, circa 1910)

By our grade school years, snow had become a venue for more autonomous play. Our family had moved to a house on Sheridan Road, just across the street from Green Bay. and the neighborhood kids spent a lot of time outside without much parental supervision. Huge ice shoves would pile up along the bay shore, and we’d climb around on them. Our major activity, though, was snowball fights – or, more aptly, snowball wars. We soon developed rules not to put ice chunks in our snowballs and not to throw directly at one another’s heads. My friends and I would build a snow fort on the curb of Sheridan Road in front of our house, and a couple of older kids from down the block would make a competing fort on the opposite side. Then we’d spend hours building stockpiles of snowballs and lobbing them at one another, usually throwing them simultaneously to increase the probability of hitting an enemy. It was rare that anybody ever hit anybody. At Washington Grade School the teachers prohibited snowballs on the playground. Instead, once five or six inches of snow had fallen, somebody would bring a football to school, and we’d play tackle. One kid would run with the ball, and twenty or thirty other kids would chase him across the snow-covered cinder playground until somebody tackled him. Then the kid who made the tackle would get to run with the ball. I only tackled somebody once – Tommy H., who was the halfback on our grade school football team. Tommy had decided to just run right through me, but somehow he slipped and fell when he hit me. I was very excited then to run with the football myself, but I only got about fifteen feet before somebody brought me down.

Doris with Steve and I at River House (circa 1946)

My siblings Steve, Vicki, Peter on the frozen Menominee at River House (circa 1957)

After the war, when my dad came back from the Pacific, our family moved out of town to my grandfather’s house on the Menominee River, and we all grew up there. Living in the country, winter became a still more momentous part of our lives. The river would freeze over, and we’d make a snow slide for sledding or skiing off the river bank and a skating rink out on the ice. Each year our snowmen would get bigger and more ornate, decorated with top hats, pine cone eyes, carrot noses, and wool scarves. We’d throw snowballs at the trunks of the Norway Pines for target practice, but more often at one another, and we’d try to build igloos on the front lawn (though the ceilings always caved in). As we got older, Steven and I spent hours playing basketball on our snow-packed driveway, stretching an extension cord from inside the garage to a desk lamp tied to a maple tree so we’d have enough light to play after dark. Steve became so skilled he joined the high school varsity basketball team as a freshman. Our dad would tie a rope from our toboggan to the rear bumper of the car and pull us on a bumpy ride up and down Riverside Drive. Our road was so unpopulated that it was one of the last places for the county to plow, and we could always count on at least two snow days from school when we got a good storm.

Main St., Menominee, Michigan (postcard, circa 1913)

At 14 I began working at the family drugstore, and one of my winter duties was shoveling the sidewalk in front of and on the side of the store. With a heavy storm, it was a significant task, and I prided myself on getting up every speck of snow, following up with a broom after I’d finished shoveling. I started driving at 16, and we teenagers necessarily learned to adapt to snowy and icy roads throughout the winter months. I’d drive home from school on Stephenson Ave., and, once I was outside the city limits, I’d start hitting the brakes sharply on the icy road and spinning around in a circle, bouncing off one snowbank and then the other. On one icy night Bob A. and I drove my mom to the O’Hara’s in his car, and we slid off the road near Grant School, tipped over, and wound up with the car on its side in a ditch, all piled on top of one another.

“Winter in Milwaukee” (Milwaukee County Historical Society, mid-1950’s)

I went off to college in 1955, then had my first coop job in the winter of 1957 in Madison, Wisconsin. I visited friends in Milwaukee, where I met Katja who was also working there. I fell in love right away, and the Wisconsin snow took on a dreamy aura. On our first evening out together we went on a long walk in downtown Milwaukee, eating popcorn and looking off the bridge at the Milwaukee River. The snow had begun falling, making the scene still more picturesque, and it was the most romantic moment of my young life to date. At the end of our coop job assignments in early March, Katja came home with me to visit Menominee. It was still snowy and cold, and we walked across the frozen Menominee River to Pig Island, looking with wonder through the ice at the objects on the sand below, including a comatose mud puppy.

Dave, J, Winston in our side yard on Whitfield Ave. (circa 1976)

Then years whisked by, and we were in Cincinnati with a family of our own. We moved from the suburbs to Clifton when our son J was three or four. Being a dad, I got to relive all of those childhood experiences of winter and snow again, but now as a parent caring for, assisting, and playing with his child. It remained a lot of fun, but now from the opposite side. Cincinnati is a city of hills, ideal for sledding in the wintertime. We, with other neighborhood families, would make regular treks to Mt. Storm Park, one of the highest points in the city, and sled down the hill for 200 yards or so. J would ride down, and I’d pull him and the sled back up, just as my mother had done for me thirty years before. We bought our house on Ludlow Avenue in Clifton around 1976, and there we began a tradition of making increasingly bigger snowmen every year to decorate our side yard.

Our House, Ludlow & Whitfield, Feb. 2010

J grew up, went off to college, partnered with K, did med school together, and now they have their own lovely family in New Orleans. My winter routine has changed once again. I walk the sheepdogs a lot, sometimes a hazardous venture on the slick ice, but I don’t go sledding, snowshoeing, or build snowmen. I’ll throw a snowball at the stop sign every now and then, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had an actual snowball fight. My connections to the world of snow are more contemplative and aesthetic. Once there’s a good snowfall, I usually trek over to Burnet Woods with my camera and take photographs of the snow-covered forest. I guess I’m reaching an age where it’s becoming more comfortable to relax by the fireside. But I do owe the world of snow a long, constantly changing history of experiences.

Love,

Dave

Super Tuesday Meditations*

Dear George,

Ohio’s Super Tuesday primary is nearly here, and we’re overflowing with excitement. In most election years the Ohio results are irrelevant because the nominees have been already decided by March, but this year the Republicans have such a lineup of outstanding candidates that their race remains wide open. Ohio is regarded as a swing state, and it’s always close and unpredictable. It’s sort of a schizophrenic state, with big cities and small towns, rusty industrial centers and millions of acres of farmland, pockets of great wealth and regions of dire poverty. The northern industrial part of the state is solidly Democratic while southwestern Ohioans vote predominantly Republican. Pundits never know which way it’s going to tip.

Affluent Warner County, just north of Cincinnati, is a good example of Super-Republican territory. House Speaker John Boehner’s district is right next door, and it’s home to one of the most vocal Tea Party contingents in the region. We go there a lot. My dentist and dermatologist are located near the community of East Chester, as are the metro area’s largest antique malls and cineplexes, best amusement park and county fair, and a world-class pro tennis tournament. East Chester and its surroundings were all cornfields when we moved to Cincinnati, but suburban sprawl has gobbled it up. Everybody seems to be very white, with neatly combed hair and preppy clothes. The whole place is spiffy and clean.

Warner County has dominated the local news this week, and you can tell that it’s G.OI.P territory. One headline story in yesterday’s Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the Lagoons of East Chester, an expensive townhouse and apartment complex, is now requiring all of its dog-owning residents to register with its in-house dog poop DNA testing program. Current Lagoons dog residents are grandfathered in, but owners of any new Lagoons dogs will be required to pay $50 for a DNA sample from the animal’s saliva. Then, if a dog poop is found on the complex’s grounds, it will be sent to a scientific DNA-testing lab in Knoxville, and, when identified, the dog and its owners will be fined $200. Since individual dogs poop several times a day, fines for a repeat offender will mount up rapidly. The manager of the apartment complex explained out that this is not a profit-making enterprise, since the $200 will be used to pay the costs of the DNA testing. He is enthusiastic because this new program will not just be put into place in East Chester, but will soon be extended to other company-owned properties in Ohio, Colorado, and the Carolinas. It’s unusual for Republicans to recognize the usefulness of hard science, but the policy is certainly in line with moral family values of cleanliness and godliness.

Guns are even more important to Warner County’s agenda than dog poops. The Tea Party crowd is particularly worried that Obama is going to try to take away their assault rifles. Ohio gun sales doubled after President Obama’s election and have been climbing ever since. Ohio Republican state legislators enacted the most lenient gun laws in the nation, allowing for concealed handguns in bars and, if pending legislation is passed, in museums, college classrooms, sports stadiums, and churches and synagogues. Last Tuesday in nearby St. Brevard a resident named Rocky Grogan was irritated when neighborhood children were playing basketball in a driveway near his house. Grogan threatened to “put a bullet through” one child’s head and sic his dogs on the rest. When the children failed to disband, Grogan got his gun and started shooting at them. The police charged him with terrorist threats, among other things. I’m not sure why terrorism was invoked, but perhaps the prosecutor decided it would easier to get a St. Brevard jury to reach a guilty verdict for terrorism than for shooting one’s gun at noisy children.

Everyone should all keep a close eye on Ohio this coming week. Right now Rick Santorum is leading Mitt Romney by eleven percentage points. That makes sense since Santorum believes that human rights come directly from God and that gay marriage would result in bestiality. But the situation is still pretty volatile. I think it all depends on who comes up with the most extreme and craziest views in the next few days. Thus, it’s too soon to count out Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich (or maybe even Perry, Cain, or Bachmann as write-in candidates).

Love,

Dave

Sources: Cincinnati Enquirer news stories at www.cincinnati.com (2-29-12)

*Pseudonyms used in this story.