Parenting 100001

Adult children...mind your own business...except if you have grandchildren...then declare WAR!!!!!! Thank you for letting me share.

My Relationship Quiz

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when your partner is patient and never willing to give up on you.

You'd like to your lover to think you are optimistic and happy.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was insecure and in constant need of reassurance.

Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything... no secrets.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as commitment. Love only works when both people are totally devoted.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Too Little Blog Too Much Homework

Just a note so that can be sure my blog does not go to the cobwebs. My English Class is hard. 11 Hour study sessions. Only 5 weeks to go. God bless everyone effected my Katrina. I sent my donation to the Red Cross, be sure that you do the same. The catastrophes may be heading to California and we better be ready to go without the government's help. Have at least a week of food and water ahead. Also trash bags and large zipock bags for all kinds of things. Anyway. Love you and stay safe.

Zorba the Greek

Zorba the Greek
By
Nikos Kazantzakis
(1883 - 1957)

Everyone of us has to get a copy of the book and the movie, so that we can have a good discussion the next time we get to go to Papadakis Taverna! Opah!

http://www.interkriti.org/culture/kazantzakis/kazantz2.htm

Yiorgis Zorbas,on whom Zorba the Greek was modeled,had worked with Nikos Kazantzakis on a project involving coal and wood to support the war.

One of the most important Greek writers, poets and philosophers of the 20th century, was born in Iraklion in 1883. In 1906 he graduated from the Athens Law School and continued his studies in Paris (1907-1909). During the Balkan Wars he fought as a volunteer in the Greek Army. After the Wars he traveled to many European and Asian countries, publishinhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.spell.gifg travelogues from his trips (Spain, Egypt-Sina, China-Japan, Russia, England etc.)

Kazantzakis, much more of a philosopher than a writer, was deeply influenced by the writings of Nietzsche and Bergen, and the philosophies of Christianity, Marxism and Buddhism. In his work, he attempted to synthesize these different world views.

http://www.interkriti.org/culture/kazantzakis/kazantz2.htm
http://www.historical-museum.gr/kazantzakis/index1.html

Blogging in the Haunted Neighborhood

I decided to wander around the blogging neighborhood and found many interesting sites. I was happily skipping around like an idiot and blam, I was very horrified to read blogs that were X-rated and everyone was talking like it was a friendly little tea party. The Soft Cell song 'Tainted Love' came to my mind and then I felt totally slimed, and convinced that we are all going straight to hell in a tote bag. Waking up this morning I felt like it was a nightmare and I didn't go down that dark street with those bad people living in every house, or did I? I felt like throwing out my computer and I am not kidding. I do feel like I need a priest to pray over this thing, and restore it back to it's pure form. Too late. It's tainted. God restoreth my blog innocence please.

The Cask of the Amontillado

I have managed to avoid this irritating story by Edgar Allan Poe since I was 14. However, since I have turned myself in and have become a student once again, this story returns as our first assignment. If you read the title quickly, you will suppose that it is about a dead armadillo, or an armadillo with a cast. It is neither. The title refers to a 126 gallon barrel of Amontillado wine. Amontillado wine is a medium sherry wine. I have just recalled that the first time I got drunk was on cream sherry wine and I was 14. Oh, my god! The plot thickens. Anyway, it is an awful story about a resentful man who gets one of his 'betters' drunk, lures him down to his cellar, and walls him up alive behind 12 tiers of stone and plaster. We all have gotten resentful before, so I got the first page of the story. After that it just gets darker and deeper and ends abruptly with Montresor plastering the poor unfortunate and plastered Forunato in his wine cellar forever. Haven't we heard this plot from Poe before? Yes, we have. Poe, often drunk, probably forgot. Moral to the story...it's your turn to find one and post it here. One source for the story: http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/cask/

Love Canal Ain't So Lovely

The Love Canal Tragedy
I will always remember the television news stories about Love Canal and the sad and cold looking abandoned homes. Behind the doors held the devastation and pain of who knows how many diseased generations caused by dumping 22,000 tons of toxic chemicals into a huge ditch left by the Love Company, when the funds ran out to build an intended Venice-type canal system. In a report from California State University web site, "The Love Canal was used as a chemical waste disposal site from 1942 until 1953, by Hooker, the city of Niagara Falls, and the US Army, until it was full with approximately 22,000 tons of toxic chemicals, waste, and garbage. In 1953, it was physically covered with a clay cap, and then in 1978 the New York State School Board purchased the land for $1.00 from Hooker Chemical Company."

http://web.csuchico.edu/~tm5/disaster.htm

I researched the EPA site and found a report by Eckardt Beck, January 1979. Beck was administrator of EPA Region 2, 1977-1979 He reports a sign a resident had put in front of his house in 1978, "Give me liberty. I already have death." Ironically, grading the site and preparation of the land for building would weaken the soil cap put over the dump. Twenty-five years after the Hooker Company stopped dumping chemicals, heavy rain further weakened the soil and the black oily substance came to the surface. He stated that he visited the site and that there were, "Trees and gardens were turning black and dying. One entire swimming pool had been had been popped up from its foundation, afloat now on a small sea of chemicals. Puddles of noxious substances were pointed out to me by the residents. Some of these puddles were in their yards, some were in their basements, others yet were on the school grounds. Everywhere the air had a faint, choking smell. Children returned from play with burns on their hands and faces." In his report he states that the Love Canal issue was really the start of the Superfund to assist toxic sites in cleanup efforts. Good thing.

http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/lovecanal/01.htm

I was still looking for who the villains were in this whole case when I found a hero. Mrs. Gibbs. Mrs. Gibbs went door to door in her neighborhood to ask if anyone had illnesses since the moved into the Love Canal neighborhood. She was concerned about her and the neighborhood's children's health. She was also concerned about the safety of the school all the kid's went to. She went to the School Board who dismissed her as a "hysterical housewife" and in her interview she said that, "…every government door was slammed in our faces." She said that she had to overcome a lot of fear to pursue what she knew was the right thing to do. The whole story is amazing and the addition of the information I got about Mrs. Gibbs, I feel that all those in power, including Love who left the big hole in the ground in the first place, who had the opportunity to profit from this, including the Board of Health, and School Board are the villains and are culpable.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2002/fenceline/getinvolved_article01.html

The story isn't over. The current status on the love Canal Case according to an article called The Love Canal Project by Corrie Kennedy, " To date, over 400 chemicals have been identified in the Love Canal dump site. After twenty years and more than $250 million for clean-up and containment (Brownfield News, 1998) the New York Department of Health has deemed the area habitable (Hoffman, 1995). The perceptions of the residents, however, has become one of the most difficult challenges of the Love Canal case. In order to redevelop the area, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and the EPA have devised a plan for reduced housing prices to encourage home buyers to consider the area. This has become a controversial issue as people who believe the area is less than safe, feel that his (sic) will subject low income families to health hazards (OMcC Productions, 2001)." According to this article, the chemical company warned any buyer in writing that the land could not be utilized for homes or schools. They were still held responsible and were fined $129 million to give to the government for cleanup, that would be disbursed to the EPA and FEMA and other federal agencies. The Chemical Companies must be rich and are in fact earning 1 trillion annually. That's 1 billion per employee.

http://www.nap.edu/books/0309061792/html/46.html

The Kennedy article stated that it will take 20,000 years for the toxic waste at Love Canal to decompose. So, none of us for the next 19,900 years will live long enough for this dump to be safe. Maybe that is what they were counting on.

http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/geo/faculty/boyce/geo4g03/projects/kennedy

Just trying to Get It Right

I have been working on trying to delete part of this and can't. OK, I'll keep trying!

Blogging and Regretting It

Well, I started thinking. I know, that's dangerous, yet I couldn't help myself. I started thinking about when I have less time to do this blogging thing, and will I have blogger's remorse. Do I have to write everyday, bla, bla. Like so many diaries I've left pages blank at times only two entries for the whole diary. Oh, oh. Where are all the diaries I've kept since I was 15!I had a box taped like Fort Knox, and stashed it somewhere. I have a few questions for you.#1 Have you ever lied in your diary, in case someone would find it and should they would read it, only you would know? #2 Have you ever written in code and then forgot the code? Well, I have. So, this blog is danger of getting misplaced, lost or written in a code that even I may forget!