MommaLibrarian's Commonplaces

I want candy . . ..

I think there is a tune for that lyric. 

Something topical:

I wanna be just like you . . .

It is pretty amazing when you encounter this in a young child.  You are filled with a sense of responsibility.  And you want to be your best.  And you are until you slip and says something like I was never any good at ....

Ron Glassbergen

Bon Crowder writes a blog called Math is Not a Four Letter Word

She talks about this problem a lot!  Recently she has been urging us as adults to recognize all the math we do every day and to identify it as math and to own up that we handle it just fine most of the time and that we would be in sorry shape if we couldn't do it.  Just like everyone know it is good for children to she you read; she says we should let our children see you do math.

What math have you done lately.  Here is some I thought of:

Which of these two different sized packages is the better buy?
How many tiles will I need to cover the floor?
How many gallons of paint will I need for this wall?
How much should I leave for a tip?
If I start driving at 10 when will I get to Grandma's house?
Do I have enough money to pay for this with the tax added on?
What time is it in London right now?
How long will it take to wash and dry all the laundry?
How many dozen donuts do we need so everyone can have two?
Why line is shortest?
How many people are ahead of me in this line?
If I eat three now, how many will I have for later?
Should I play the heart or the club?
How many blocks do I need to make this quilt?
What is the chance the dice will come up six?
How much of the pie is left?
Which scrabble word will give me the bigger score?
How big of a box can I build with these boards?

math - arithmetic - numbers - add - subtract - estimate - figure - calculate

tatts

Fresh, Crawford Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

How can I not approve?

Growing up

“I don’t believe in optimism. I believe in optimal behavior. That’s a different thing … Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today. It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad – you did it. At the end of the week you’ll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year,”

Ray Bradbury

I found this on the blog, "The Accidental Hedonist: From a closed mind, to an open book".  The author Kate wrote, "I'll miss you, old man.  It was you who made me want to read when I was a child."  Kate credits Andrew Sullivan's blog, "The Dish, biased and balanced" at the Daily Beast.

There was no library in either of the elementary schools I attended.  We only had one car in the family and the public library was downtown.  That meant I could only get to the library when my dad had time on the weekend.  We were each limited to six books at a time but he could make his books last two weeks and I was lucky to get through the rest of the weekend before I had finished mine.  Junior High School was a wonderful surprise.  There was a library in the school.  I got to work there every day for one period and I could check out books as fast as I could read them.  Even better these were really 'grown-up' books.  The first one I really remember was The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

I would like to do something every day and feel good about it.  I do something every day.  It is the second part that is difficult for me. despite this I can still enjoy a great book and feel good about that.  Everyone should have a good book to turn to.

Off-Shore == Out-Source == Unemployed

I am still looking for the exact reference to this tax loophole.

 

A break for shipping your job to China

In April 750 workers at a Kimberly-Clark paper mill in Everett, Washington, lost their jobs when the company shipped their work to a lower-cost facilities overseas.

Steelworkers in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, suffered the same fate. Their mill's owner, Joerns Healthcare, took away 150 jobs last month by moving operations to Mexico.

Another 170 people making auto sensors at a Sensata Technologies plant in Freeport, Illinois, will be out of work by year's end. Their jobs are being carted off to China.

In each case American taxpayers will subsidize the evacuation.

It's not just cheap labor that pushes work overseas. The U.S. tax code allows companies to expense every last cost of sending your job abroad.

At a time of 8 percent unemployment, one would think Congress would rush to kill a loophole that actually encourages economic misery. One would be wrong.

This summer Senate Democrats introduced the Bring Jobs Home Act, which would kill the loophole and offer a 20 percent tax credit to companies that bring work back to America.

Republicans filibustered the bill to death. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah went so far as to call the measure "a joke."

The Ten Most Egregious Tax Loopholes in the U.S.
By Chris Parker
River Front Times
Thursday, Oct 11 2012

Kimberly-Clark "The company plans to level the 69-acre site, scrap some equipment and send the rest overseas."   Diaper Manufacturing In China On Kimberly-Clark's Radar March 19, 2012 "Construction has started on Kimberly-Clark's new diaper manufacturing base in the Jiangning Development Zone in Nanjing."
	"Joerns Healthcare puts layoff count at 146 The announcement was made months ago, but Joerns Healthcare [owner Quad-C Management, Inc., a Charlottesville, VA-based private equity firm] finally has specified how many people will be let go from its Stevens Point facility - 146, beginning in June. Joerns made the announcement in a communication that was sent to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, according to a report in the Stevens Point Journal. The layoffs will occur over 14 days beginning on June 4. The company produces medical equipment to treat and heal wounds and safety products designed to prevent falls by elderly patients." In Business Madison April 2012 "Joerns Healthcare (Joerns) has announced that it will be consolidating the majority of its Stevens Point manufacturing operations into its Arlington, TX, Matamoros, MX, and Dumas, AR locations over the next 6 to 12 months. Joerns will continue to provide customer and technical support as well as design and develop key products from the Stevens Point location. . . Our Stevens Point team has worked hard this past year to reduce costs, and we applaud their efforts, but we needed to take this step to help us continue to provide the highest quality to our customers at a competitive price." Wausau Daily Herald January 10, 2012    Charlotte, NC "Local officials are angry over the move, saying the company was offered incentives to stay in Stevens Point. Mayor Andrew Halverson tells the Stevens Point Journal state and city incentives were in the multimillions." NBC 26 By Associated Press Jan. 11, 2012 Glossy brochure put out by the Matamoros Economic Development Committee flaunts jobs in many typical manufacturing jobs but also nanotechnology, semiconductors, aerospace manufacturing, medical devices, The 21st century jobs that our inventive skills have created. Matamoros Gobierno Municipal Matamoros Economic Development Committee 2011 - 2013
"Sensata managers announced that by the end of 2012 all the equipment and jobs would be relocated, mostly to Jiangsu Province." New York Times by SHARON LaFRANIERE and MIKE McINTIRE October 9, 2012 "The workers’ severance package was cut just a few months before Bain-owned Sensata took over the plant - signaling that the company wanted to avoid paying full severance to its employees when it shipped their jobs to China. Sensata Technologies, owned by Bain Capital, plans to close the Freeport plant by the end of the year and outsource 170 jobs to China. Many Sensata workers have already received layoff notices and have been training their Chinese replacements." Rock River Times Rockford, Illinois Oct. 8, 2012 "At Bain Capital-Owned Sensata Technologies, Arrests Ahead Of Layoffs And Plant Closing Three people protesting the closure of an Illinois plant run by a Bain Capital-owned company were arrested on Monday after an encounter with a truck driver hauling equipment out of the plant. The protesters had been trying to prevent the removal of machinery from a Freeport, Ill. plant for Sensata Technologies, which manufactures electronic sensors for cars and employs nearly 200 people. The firm has been in the national spotlight because it is owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm that GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney helped found, and it is outsourcing the Illinois jobs to China during a presidential campaign that's often been focused on offshoring." Huffington Post 10/08/2012 3:41 pm EDT Updated: 10/08/2012 4:07 pm EDT

Farm Animals ! ? ! ? ! ? !

I guess I am not the only one offended by recent anti-woman legislation.  If you are interested this is a link to the actual speech of the Georgia legislator.  Did  that get your blood boiling?

Draw the Line 
http://www.drawtheline.org/

What did we do to you?

Women are not faking rape and they don’t have magical powers to deactivate rape sperm (Todd Akin - scientist)

We are not pregnant before we are pregnant, we can’t have an abortion if we are not pregnant (Arizona - pregnancy begins the day after your last menstrual period)

Women shouldn’t be forced to carry stillborn babies (Georgia - women as livestock bill)

Abortions don’t cause mental instability (n Texas, Kansas and West Virginia, women seeking an abortion are told they are at risk for suicide, depression, fear, anxiety and alcohol and drug abuse)

The HPV vaccine doesn’t make girls mentally retarded (Michele Bachmann - scientist)

No woman’s boss should be able to demand information from her to decide if her reason for wanting birth control is moral enough to grant permission (Arizona legislation - unless a woman brings in a note proving she is not using it to avoid getting pregnant, an employer can deny birth control to any woman in the workplace)

Planned Parenthood isn’t turning Girl Scouts into Commulezzies (If there is anything worse than a Communist it is a Lesbian and they are so closely tied together)