Just watched Ms Stahl on 60 Minutes. Great report. Thank you! Coal ash = reason enough isn’t it to get moving on clean energy? No environmental hazards I’ve heard of involved with solar panels and wind turbines and geothermal heating and cooling systems … If everyone demanded it, prices would come down so that everyone can have ‘em. CLEAN energy, folks. Let’s get with it already!

I miss Serafina with an ache that won’t go away, but I have two other kitties—Rocky and Belle. They’re old girls, and I want them to stay well as long as possible. So, are two cats enough, too many, or too few? 

Dreams? Maybe a better word for me is "goals." Right now my goals are to stay self-sufficient as long as I’m alive and to be the best grandmother I can and I’m allowed to be. The rest is out of my hands … 

I’ve just been reading more "outrage" over vaccines and why people are becoming more distrustful of them. Many of the intelligencia seem to think this is outright ignorance, lauding vaccine developers and producers for the many millions they have saved from disease and death. They, the few, don’t seem to get that we, the many, are bombarded all too often with announcements that something we trusted not to harm us in fact does. My take on this is: If capitalism cannot be integrated with democracy more successfully than we’ve been able to do so far, we better rethink the whole thing imo. At the risk of stating the obvious, the profit motive cannot and should not be the be all and end all for every good gd thing.

It took me a while to get used to proofing and marking up via PDF files. And those who have to transfer proofing correx to final ms seem to have learning to do as well, especially those who are doing it from Asia/India! But that’s another story …

First the $95 "homeless" doll, and just heard about that  Montblanc introduced it’s limited edition $23,000 pen meant to commemorate Ghandi’s birthday. Get the feeling that something is getting lost in translation?

P.S "… relics of feel-good, NGO types"???????? 

Yes, I remember all those things Joni listed—and mimeographs and ditto machines and something called a Gestetner, oh and dictation machines with foot pedals—and none of it with much nostalgia. Publishing production though, that’s another story. Both at the advertising end and the editorial end, everything was hands on. Everything that appeared in print first had to be set in type and reproduced and pasted down on boards, page by page, huge piles of boards … gosh I loved it. And if we didn’t like a layout or even if we found a misspelling in a tiny teeny word somewhere in the "small print," we could get a knife and move things around to our liking. Fascinating thing, bookmaking. I also liked going to the printer’s to check color proofs … which reminds me of one maddening incident: A trip to a printer in Indiana, I think it was. After a 12-hour day checking proofs starting at about 6 am, I went to the restaurant in the very nice hotel where I was staying for some supper. I couldn’t understand what the problem was when the maître d’ expressed distress at my request to be seated. I was dressed appropriately, so it wasn’t that. It took a few minutes for me to realize that these people weren’t used to seeing a woman traveling alone. And that they felt any woman eating alone in their restaurant was INappropriate and unwanted. Knuckleheads. I remained hungry that night and was glad to check out the next day. But that was a long time ago ….

Emma, thank you, and I hope your "other one" stays comfortable and enjoys life for a long time. Best to you, Rocky. 

Rachel interviewed him last night: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#33110896

Hi Sherrie — About a Caste System: If forty-four-thousand people die in the U.S. every year due directly to lack of healthcare and half of the elected legislators in Washington believe that they don’t have to do anything about it, maybe we don’t have to wait to "devolve." Maybe that’s what we have already.

And I agree with you about "tasteless." But "outrage"? Well, why not. It seems that everyone is outraged about everything these days. Have you heard about Grayson on the other side’s healthcare plan? Now the Republicans are outraged at his lack of decorum. geez.