I would like to believe that if fighting Al Queda is the real mission, and if it is a worthy one and the threat that it once was, our president and his huge assembly of advisors is devising the best plan for their defeat or containment, which may not involve Afghanistan at all.  After all, US presence there was a fait accompli when he took office.  I don’t have access to all the information he does, and neither does any other human being, so I am a bit put off by the loud opinions on every side, no matter how valid or well-substantiated they may be.  And I’m very put off by those who can see only a military option.  I also have a great deal of confidence in this man’s intelligence and grasp of the Big Picture and I am more than willing to give him the four years of his elected term to deal with more issues than any president in living memory, or perhaps ever, has had to address, whether I agree with every nuance or not.  I don’t know what he knows and I refuse to second-guess him and stumble over my own hubris.  Hubris.  It becomes more appalling with every passing glimpse into the world of politics, more evidently the roadblock to good governance on every level. I’d like to believe our president is capable of removing his ego, admitting errors and making course corrections as needed.  He is often in uncharted territory.

That said, a world without war is my deepest desire so that children everywhere can grow up in peace and safety.  I would also like to see an end to oil dependency (I said "dependency," not no oil at all) so that Mid-East conflict can become a thing of the past, and so that the technologies of the future can begin today, thus ensuring a vibrant economies, robust education, employment for all, and stability worldwide.  Hungry people are not good candidates for peaceful co-existence.  We have global issues, are one planet, and everything one country does affects others.  I hope (and think) our president is thinking and acting at that level, which takes very, very careful thought and decision-making and will never satisfy those who see only a small part of the picture and demand their part be satisfied - yesterday!

I am 66 and on Medicare and Medicaid.  I did a lot of research on this subject before I turned 65.  Keeping it simple: Medicare is federal and Medicaid is state.  Medicaid varies a bit from state to state and is only available based on income (mine is quite low).  For those who do not qualify for Medicaid, a supplement is necessary for Medicare Part B does not adequately cover medical expenses.  For medical treatment Medicare and Medicaid are just fine and I was very thankful for this when I had a nasty fall, literally breaking my foot from my ankle, required two surgeries in three months.

However, there is no preventive care (because there is no money in it, let’s be honest).  I must pay for annual physicals, for instance.  There is also no provision for dental care or eyeglasses.  Since dental care is very directly related to heart problems in particular, and since not being able to see is related to any number of problems, these are obvious flaws.  Dentures are very costly and without adequate dental care, a necessity that many people (me included) would have to do without.  I struggle to make my small income cover regular dental hygienist’s visits (for me, that is three times a year at a cost of about $125 per visit).

Now about cost savings.  I’ll use my own example.  I monitored the charges from my accident very carefully.  Just in my one case alone I found a doctor who not only billed twice, but who billed for things he had not done.  I found a CNA who was on the hospital payroll billing $700 for the five minutes she was in my room.  The hospital charges were astronomical.  And I questioned my doctor on every visit and procedure so as to avoid duplications.  I found that it is very important that we monitor our care, challenge our doctors, be advocates for our own health.  I also alerted Medicare to the spurious claims.

Between the pay-for-service that allows unscrupulous medical personnel to scam the system and doctors’ justifiable fears of malpractice suits, billions of dollars are misspent every year.  There really are cost savings to be had.  If preventive care were added to the paid services, the cost savings would be incredible.

I am quite happy with Medicare overall, but there is certainly more than enough evidence for serious health care reform.  And it troubles me that Medicare really will bankrupt our country without serious reform.  Just follow the money and a solution will be evident.

I don’t know where you get your "facts", David, but I am an organic farmer and know many others and our reality does not resemble your descriptions.  Healthy soil is the basis for it all, and only healthy soil can impart the nutrition we expect to find in our foods.  Healthy soil also promotes healthy plants, that resists disease and many of us practice companion planting as well.  I do not personally know any organic farmer who is using pesticides nor one who can’t sell everything in his/her production faster than s/he can produce it.

 As for sanitary measures, have you ever talked with a USDA meat inspector who is honest about what they actually see?  Or have you examined the kitchen in your favorite restaurant?  

It is always amazing to me all the opinion and so-called fact urban people have about subjects about which they know absolutely nothing.  

As for pesto, I fell in love with lemon basil pesto when I made a bit last summer.  This year I grew a lot of it.  Same recipe as above, with walnuts or pecans - not pine nuts.

In addition to "fried green tomatoes" and green tomato sauce and salsa, I found a recipe in a very old cookbook for green tomato mincemeat.  I have used it as one would mincemeat, as filling in filled cookies, with cream cheese for icing, as chutney, as marmalade, in marinades - I find it delicious.  I put it up in pint jars.  Here goes:

Green Tomato Mincemeat

4 qt finely chopped green tomatoes

2 qt pared finely chopped tart apples

1 lb seedless raisons

4 tbsp minced citron, lemon or orange peel

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground allspide

1/4 tsp ground cloves

2 c firmly packed brown sugar

3 c granulated sugar (I did not use this much)

3/4 c vinegar

1/4-1/2 c lemon juice

2 c water

Combine all ingreients and cook mixture slowly until tender and slightly thickened.  Stir frequently to prevent sticking.  Pour into hot sterile jars, filling jars to the top, and seal.  Sore in a cool, dark place.  (Makes 4 qts.)

January 21, 2008, about noon, temperature 20 degrees after night time lows of 0 for some days.  Nine-week-old puppy goes out onto thick ice on creek and falls through thin spot over current.  Rescue attempts find me losing my center of gravity and crashing through the ice into waist deep water with nothing but a steep bank for an exit for a long way up or down the creek.  Hypothermia set in almost immediately and I knew I had very little time to get myself out of the predicament.  Had to break ice by pulling myself up onto it so my weight would break off larger pieces because doing it with my fists was not efficient.  It took tremendous strength and endurance to go the nearly 60 feet I had to go to a shallower bank.  About five feet from goal I just wanted to stop.  It would have been so easy to just rest, close my eyes, drift away.  So hard to keep my focus.  Only the thought of my children kept me going.  I remember getting out and taking off my soaked woolen poncho (heavy) but don’t remember walking up to my house, about 200 feet uphill.  I remember walking up the steps to the house because I had thought I might not have the strength to do that but knew if I could even crawl inside and collapse I’d be okay.  To this day I can’t believe I did this and survived.  I was 65 years old and live in such a remote area that I’d have never been seen or found for quite some  time, by which time I’d been a block of ice.  The up side of that is that I learned that hypothermia is a very, very peaceful way to go.  And that I still have more physical stamina than I would have imagined.  There are other dramatic exploits in my life as I’ve always been an outdoors adventurer and got caught in some crazy wind as Joan did many years ago in the San Gabriel mountains of Los Angeles (and with my four tiny daughters to protect), among many other close calls.  But this was by far the most dramatic.  So exactly three weeks later when I got my shoe caught in the front steps and took a wrenching fall, literally breaking my foot off my leg, and had to pull myself into the house by my arms, scooting on my butt,  with my foot bumping along behind me, it seemed relatively easy (except for the pain when it set in).

Good news: the pup miraculous survived, I can walk again, and Daisy and I enjoy life together very much.  She has proven to be one tough pup over and again.  That’s my girl!

Oh my dear!  These days a Goddess has to wear so many hats!  I am also Goddess of Etiquette and Polite Discourse, not to mention Democracy in Public Opinion.  This means you are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine and neither of us will savage the other but politely agree to disagree.  This is how grown-ups engage in dialogue, or hadn’t you learned that yet?  You see, your language reveals much more about you than you’d want anyone to know.  Most notable is ignorance.  Or is it extreme subjectivity?  Possibly a dollop of insecurity?  Perhaps they are related.  In any case, your comments are completely off the mark, as well as very rude.  Have a nice day! 

Works even better with some maturity and experience, er, under one’s belt…

Oh, my darling, I’ve been in your shoes.  Sixteen years of marriage, four gorgeous daughters - and still a virgin for all practical purposes.  Of course it was always MY fault that we didn’t have more sex - because I didn’t have big boobs!  And there were all the other "faults" as well, what I called "the scroll" that he would unroll and read aloud to me (not really, but that’s how I saw it in my mind) to justify his dissatisfaction with me.

 So we divorced and I enjoyed what I had been missing well into my 50’s but not having found a life partner and finding that my take on what constitutes great sex and a great relationship demanded something above what I was experiencing for the most part, as well as the scars from the first relationship (I was a virgin when we married) that I can only now admit still hurt me, finds me quite alone in my 60’s - but with lots of wonderful memories.

My point is that you have years in which to explore yourself and what you want in a relationship, but you have a considerable amount of healing to do and are more fragile than you would imagine.  You are also arrested in development in some ways, not having had the experience of others in your age group.

 My solution was to establish a really good relationship with myself first, and then never compromise it.  The more tricky as we date at an older age where "baggage" can be a real contaminant, our own and the others’.  I wish you a rewarding journey.  Be very patient and kind with yourself.  You deserve it!

Thank you, Laurie.  Were this lovely woman not FLOTUS no one would pay much attention to her wardrobe, first, and anyone with any sense of the aesthetic would note that it is less than flattering to her, second, and quite often inappropriate for a number of reasons, third.  Her belt (most unflattering!) fetish reminds me of Hilary’s headband. 

 None of this really matters, of course, but since she has been elevated to iconic status simply because of who she is (why else? the "empress has no clothes"!) I can’t help noticing.

 She is a very lovely woman and her choices do not do her justice (for the most part).  She has a difficult figure and her choices frequently make the worst of it.  Any time a woman’s clothing makes more of a statement than her face, her carriage, her personality - when the clothes wear the woman instead of vice versa - fasion sense has been violated.

 That said, first ladies often morph into something much better with time and experience.  Hilary is an outstanding example of this and how lovely she is now that she has found what truly becomes her.  I have no doubt Michelle will have a similar experience.

Reality is a powerful cure for hypocrisy and, even worse, self-righteousness.  Human emotions are a powerful reality.  I applaud him for his emotional honesty, in spite of his offenses.  To anyone who has never walked in his shoes: you are simply in no position to judge (I have been there and it is AWFUL!).  I repeat the words of a sage: to err is human; to forgive is divine.  The highest order of divinity is to forgive yourself.  We all have foibles and shortcomings.  We do not all live in a glass house.  Personally, I am really tired of all the commentary based on personal biases, morals or beliefs that smack of a sort of hypocrisy in themselves in that the commentators have either 1) never been honest about their own failures to live up to the standards they espouse and/or 2) have very little empathy or compassion for those whose mistakes are so easy to pillory, which they would want were it their situation, had they tripped on their own imperfection.  This is particularly true when these would-be judges bear none of the consequences of these indiscretions or errors.  Often, silence is not only golden, but the better part of wisdom.

Very hot here on the high desert and I don’t like heat (though it is dry heat - no humidity, thank god).  Fortunately I live on a large creek, so I float and soak in the cool water of the creek every day, sometimes many times.  Especially beatiful at night, especially when there is a full moon.  Very private with lots of foliage and critters.

I believe the same criteria applied to Sarah Palin are a requirement in this case as well. One cannot merely skip to the front of the line. Name recognition is not a substitute for ability, experience and genuine desire for service. Neither woman has the qualifications for the position for which she has deemed herself worthy. Both need to do their homework, which includes effective public service other than in the arts for Caroline. There is no place for hubris. These positions are very serious positions and politics as usual has become almost anathema (or should). There is so much hard work ahead of everyone in this country that we simply must have the best candidates for every position for the best possible team. Social connections are irrelevant.

I’m in the Barbara/Cheryl, Irish Bell camp. I have five daughters, the last of whom was born when I was 37. I found it marvelous to enjoy her burgeoning womanhood from a more mature viewpoint than I had with my earlier daughters (last of four born when I was 27), but in all cases I had no sense of loss of my own feminine powers or mystique and felt more like I was welcoming them to the greatest show on earth: a full-fledged woman! I spoke easily about the joys of sex and childbirth and mothering and related woman issues, as well as career opportunities, education (self and formal) and becoming all they could be individually and not copies of me. I cherished the uniqueness of each daughter, but especially the one born to me so much later. As they moved into the years I had outgrown, I found myself pursuing fields and areas and levels of womanhood that were very beckoning, without any diminution of my female powers, which I never limited to sexual attractiveness or reproductive ability. I knew that life after children would hold great promise for me in interests and activities I had placed on the shelf to fulfill my delightful responsibilities of mothering. This included a sexual freedom and joy that might be reserved for a more mature woman. I found menopause a stepping stone to a much better plane of existence, a new beginning for me personally, an opportunity to shed titles (mother, wife, cook, social secretary, what have you) and move into being more me, free of so many obligations to others. I began to understand some of the older women I had long admired whose identity other than that of fecundity had long intrigued me. I did not find it interesting or healthy to live life vicariously through my children, while still retaining complete interest in their lives and well-being. I think a very great deal has been lost in our youth-centered culture, for both men and women, and that sex has been taken entirely out of context. I see this as a disservice to people of any age and a trivializing of a human life, with all its potential. Speaking only for myself, at age nearly 66, I am enjoying my best years personally and am eager for those to come. I’d like to encourage others to share that with me, to really and truly enjoy the sense of self one can begin to enjoy and appreciate as one ages and grows in ways unimaginable in the throes of youthful hormones that obliterate so much else. Lest there be misunderstanding, my five daughters are the best thing I ever did. I cherish the memories and enjoy the continuing story of their lives as they unfold. But I am more than my children. And that is good for them too.

And you have made mine, Joan. I have a blog, but seldom write in it: http://www.blogger.com/profile/03607248144393491145. I do love to write and have begun a book. The blog will direct you to an e-mail address. I invite you.