respublica

Rah

Missouri basketball coach, Mike Anderson has signed a 7 year contract.  After lots of angst in the St. Louis sports media about whether or not he might leave for Georgia or Alabama, the wait is over.  He's staying and that is good news for the University of Missouri.

He brought the school not only a winning team, but a disciplined style of coaching which brought respect to the program.

Mizzou Rah.

Get those updates

Tomorrow is April 1st, the day Conficker, a malicious internet worm is thought to be ready to strike Microsoft computers worldwide.  Apple seems to be immune to these threats.

If you're running Microsoft, go to the Windows Update link in your program file and get things updated.  The same with your virus protection.  Make sure your virus protection is running, Conficker may try and disable it.

It could be the worm wipes out files and monitor keyboard strokes to get private financial information and passwords. 

Or, as some believe, it could just try to get you to buy fake software and other products.

No one can say for sure what will happen, but better safe than sorry.

What do you do?

I'm a little off my game this week, maybe a little out of my mind.  I am heading for Kansas tomorrow to stay with my mother while my sister attends a conference out of state.

Elder care is exhausting.  My sister bears the brunt of it, and she's been a saint.   But neither us know quite what to do about our mother who lives independently in a small duplex, but is not at all independent.  There are various pains, periodic confusion, loneliness, poor eating habits, not to mention the constant phone calls to my sister and to a lesser extent, but not a small number by any means, to me. 

What do you do?  When a person needs more help than can be given by a family member, but a person is stubborn about moving into a place where there are people to help and to socialize with?

There is no good answer, family members really need the endurance of a marathon runner and the patience of a saint.  It often seems that older people make the move they should make one step too late and often that move is still the wrong one for the attention they need. 

Dale and I have at least learned from this.  We are going to make sure we do not follow the same path, we'll make the most helpful move before we really need to, get our house in order. 

But for now, I have a lot of fear about how I will deal with the rest of the week out there in Kansas.  

Blago, the Tribune and Project Elwood

The Chicago Tribune has learned through newly released state records that former Gov Blagojevich had been having quiet discussions through email, phone and personal conversations, about the possibility of the state of Illinois buying Wrigley Field.

The talks were named Project Elwood, a reference to a Dan Aykroyd movie, The Blues Brothers, in which he played a character named Elwood who would give 1060 W. Addison (Wrigley Field) as his address.

This complicated and convoluted unofficial plan got derailed when Blagojevich was arrested on conspiracy charges.  Seems the governor became obsesses with saving Wrigley Field when he learned Sam Zell, Tribune Co CEO was considering knocking down Wrigley and building a Coors Field type stadium.

De-Baptism

In Europe, any number of countries are seeing a growing 'renunciation of baptism' movement.  More than 100,000 people in Britain have downloaded de-baptism forms, the same in Argentina, 60,000 in Italy.

Countries now have organized groups who's purpose is to help people get an official piece of paper signifying that they have been de-baptized.  Argentina's secularist movement is calling their efforts, "Not in my name."

In Britain, the National Secularist Society sells parchment certificates for $4.35.  So far they've sold 1500 which means they've already found a way to make $6525 by doing almost nothing.  

Suckers.

500 people for a meeting with 20

Barack Obama is taking along 500 officials and staff as he heads for the G 20 Summit in Great Britain today.  200 secret service people will be bringing along armoured limousines and helicopters.  There will also be 6 doctors and members of his White House kitchen staff.

This has likely been standard operating procedure for oversesas presidential travel for some time.

60 gallon recycling cans

Some Maryville residents will be part of a Madison County residential recycling trial by taking on 60 gallon recycling bins.  1800 homes are eligible to receive one of these cans out of the village's 2500 homes.   Homeowners who are chosen to be part of this program must pay a deposit fee which could be as high as 40 dollars.  Depending on how this works out, the program may be offered to all of Madison County.

60 gallons seems like huge container for a once a week pick-up.  A year or two ago, Clayton received a grant which enabled the city to give each residence a 30 gallon recycling bin without a deposit and for the most part, this seems like a size adequate to hold normal weekly recycling.

The Maryville Village Board also agreed to apply for a grant which would allow them to get large recycling bins to be used at community events.  This is a great idea.  Too many local festivals, fairs and homecomings dump way too much trash in the normal dumpster which could have been recycled especially bottles, cans, plastic cups and cardboard. 

It's just so hard to picture 60 gallon bins.

Upper and Lower Pleasantville

Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan writes about the Clayton school referendum up for vote on April 7.

You don't have to live in Clayton to appreciate the pitch perfect explanation of an issue which has people talking and sticking signs in their yards. 

"But what I like best about small municipalities are elections. How much fun it is when you know the candidates and their supporters and the inside stories.

For instance, I live in Pleasantville, the seat of the county government. It used to be we had no steamy issues. Should the fire engines be red or lime green? (I was a lime green guy.)"

"School bonds always pass in Pleasantville....Surely, this bond issue would pass easily. But late last year, the School Board came up with a plan to swap properties with Washington University. The university had earlier acquired the old CBC High School property, which is located in the southern section of town, Lower Pleasantville. That's my neighborhood. The university would give Pleasantville the high school in return for Wydown Middle School."

But there was an immediate uproar. The people in Upper Pleasantville, the tonier section of town, have long feared the reach of the university. In fact, the university has bought several homes in Upper Pleasantville, and these purchases have been a source of great concern — even though the university has done nothing more than use the homes to house visiting professors."

Read to the end to see how Bill decided to vote on Prop S.

Still tasty

Ah ha.  A website which gives you the information you really want to know.  How long will food keep?  Opened?  Unopened?  Spices?  Produce?

Commercially bottled or fresh?

Still Tasty has the answers.  Click to any food on the list and you'll get a paragraph describing its staying power plus a graph which gives you the months/weeks/years it will stay eatable.

Now you'll know how to answer someone in the family who peers into the refrigerator and asks, "Is that cheese still good?"

The new bulbs may save energy, but...

...they don't always work.

The New York Times reports on an issue with those compact fluorescent bulbs that are supposed to be great energy savers and which will soon make the traditional incandescent light bulbs obsolete.  They often don't work.  Buyers get them home and find they fail or quit too soon. 

This is no surprise to anyone who has swapped them out and it is no surprise to those of us who sit on Clayton's EEAC board.  This is a board dedicated to the environment and many discussions have been had about how unsatisfying these new bulbs are.  These discussions take place among people who really really want to save energy and don't easily criticize attempts to do so. 

There are several problems we've found with these bulbs including the lack of instructions on the packaging. 

1.  They are dim.  Oh.  Now we are learning that if you replace an incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent, you have to go to a higher number wattage if you want to be able to see.  So if you take out an old 60 watt bulb you need to put in a 75.  Maybe higher.

2.  The lamp light takes some time to brighten to its full wattage on the CF's.  If you turn on a light to check a number in the phone book, prepare to wait some time before you can see.  Check it out for yourself.

3.  Not all of these CF's fit under all lampshades.

4.  Rarely can you find a CF which can be used with a dimmer switch.

5.  You can't always use them in three way lamp switches.

6.  The light emitted is odd. 

7.  You can't put the CF's in the trash when they burn out, they must be taken to a recycler.  Home Depot has a bin for the CF's.

8.  If one of the bulbs breaks in the house there are all kinds of scary instructions as to how to clean up the mercury.

All of our home lamps have the CF's, but except for the noble feeling we're doing the right thing, there's not much satisfaction in them.