Our Granddaughter Came to Stay

Chris and Tim went to Napa for a conference this week and took our granddaughter along. She's  a great traveler. While they were gone they had some painting done at their house. When Tim and our granddaughter got home, (Chris had to stay behind and work) he judged that the paint fumes were too strong for them to stay there, so they came to stay with us for a couple of nights. By last night the fumes had subsided enough that she and Tim could move back in, so we had to give her up. Here are some pictures from her visit. 

Ginger was a little put out that she wasn't the center of attention, but she's really good with our granddaughter. Here's our daughter with Ginger and our granddaughter sitting in the recliner:

Ginger loves our granddaughter (fortunately the feeling is reciprocated) and here's some evidence:

Here are some pictures that are just cute:

 

Finally, there has to be a bedtime story before lights out:

What Else Is there to Say?

Ginger and the Big Dogs

Ginger has been pretty well behaved lately, so she's welcome at Chris and Tim's house. They have two big dogs--a black Lab and a Lab collie mix. When she was small, Ginger was a little scared of them and used to run around when they chased her. She could go places they couldn't because she was so small. Now that she's bigger she's a little more willing to mix it up with them. Hannah, the Lab, is pretty indifferent to Ginger most of the time, but Casey, who is a perpetual puppy, likes to play with Ginger. Sometimes Casey teases her with a toy and sometimes they box with each other. Here's a picture of the two of them mixing it up.

However, playing with the big dogs is tough on a puppy. By the time we get home Ginger is usually wiped. Here are some pictures of her after an evening with the big dogs.

Health Care for America

Health care is likely to dominate policy discussions over the next four years, especially if a Democrat is elected president and Democrats control Congress. Both Clinton and Obama have offered proposals for a national health care plan that would cover virtually all Americans. Their plans are based on a paper by Jacob S. Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, titled, "Health Care for America."  This month the Economic Policy Institute released the results of a study by the health economics team at the Lewin Group. The study suggests that the plan is not only feasible, but that the marginal cost of insuring all Americans is negligible in the context of the US budget.

The Republicans and the healthcare industry lobby vehemently oppose such a plan. Opponents characterize these proposals as "socialized medicine" and point to the alleged failure of such plans in other countries, notably Canada, even though the Canadian experience compares very favorably with the US private healthcare system (See Part I and Part II of "Mythbusting Canadian Healthcare," by Sara Robinson, an American living in Canada and covered by their healthcare system.)

At this point in our history opposition to a universal healthcare plan is not only inhumane, it is economically indefensible. Healthcare takes up a larger share of our GDP and costs are growing faster than in any other developed economy.  All the evidence (infant mortality--the US is 33rd--below Cuba; life expectancy--the US is 45th--below Jordan)  suggests that our healthcare system is far from the best in the world.

How do compassionate conservatives sleep at night?

New Links

I've put up a couple of new links on the right side of my page. One of them is to the Obama for President page.  The other is to a blog/on-line news source called the Burnt Orange Report. At the very least it demonstrates that not everyone in Texas is a conservative. The blog started out as a UT endeavor, but it's gone way beyond that now. So far I've found it interesting--I need to know more about Texas politics if I'm going to be an effective Texan and it's nice to commune with fellow travelers. You might want to check it out if you haven't seen it before.

Obama for President

I guess it's still too soon to tell who is going to be the Democratic candidate for president. Things haven't been going exactly the way I'd like them to go. I was initially for Hillary (maybe because I like Bill so much), but the Clintons finally got so over the top out of fear that the nomination was slipping away that they turned me off. My flirtation with Edwards was short because he dropped out just after I started shopping for a new candidate. Obama was my senator when I lived in Illinois and I was a strong supporter of his in that role, but I worried that he might not be ready for a bigger stage.

Today a friend of mine, with whom I'd been having an e-mail discussion about candidates (and whose opinion I regard highly) sent me a link to a blog (thank you, Jane). It is highly factual and worth the read. I've decided that this reflects somewhat badly on me, because I obviously haven't done my homework. If I had, my worries about Obama having sufficient substance would never have existed. The points made in the blog are not about Obama's stand on the "big" issues that the pundits talk about in the media. I think they are more fundamental than that. Although Obama seems more correct than most on those, he's also correct on some fundamental issues like openness and integrity in government that other candidates seem to have a problem  recognizing as worthy of debate.

For example, I read an article this week about the number of Clinton administration members who are now with lobbyists or representing businesses and groups that want something from our government. The point of the article was that these people are already in place waiting for Hillary to be elected. I imagine that it is impossible to stop former administration employees from being in these sorts of positions and I don't think this should reflect negatively on Hillary. After all, a lot of unemployed Bushies are going to be angling for the same sorts of jobs over the next 12 months. On the other hand, Obama has proposed a whole set of safeguards to make such activities transparent--a much more realistic approach to the problem.

Anyway, here's a link to the blog. It may provide you with a whole new perspective on Barack Obama's candidacy. It did for me.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/obama-actually.html

Puppy Update

Ginger is growing by leaps and bounds. We don't notice it so much because we're around her all the time, but the scales tell us that she's getting bigger. She's at five months now and weighs almost 15 pounds. It looks like she's going to be a little bigger than we thought. We're guessing now that she'll top out somewhere about 20-21 pounds. She just got her second haicut this week, so we took some new pictures.  

We're told we spoil her shamelessly--she sleeps on our bed (she's big enough now to get up by herself) and she's allowed on the furniture. She doesn't shed, so there's no problem that way and so far she hasn't done any damage. She is getting a little big to sleep in my lap though.

Here's a shot of Ginger in her Valentine's day neckerchief. she looks a lot slimmer with her new cut.

Here's a shot of Ginger with her favorite playmate. She's a very demanding puppy regarding her playtime.

Ginger also takes her rest time very seriously. She likes to sleep on a pillow under the table where Susan and I work.

Chicago Grandkids

There are a lot of pictures of our Texas granddaughter on my blog because we get to see her every week. We don't get to see our Chicago grandkids very often. We Skype with them some, but I wanted everyone to see how cute they are and how fast they are growing up. So my apologies to our daughter-in-law, but I took some pictures from her blog to load on mine in order to give them equal time.

Here's a picture of our younger grandson with his baby sister. He dotes on her, much as he did with her sister when she was this age.

This is a picture of the three oldest getting ready for the Super Bowl. Their mother is an avid Giants fan, so everyone is decked out in Giants gear. Everyone was very happy with the result. Our daughter, who is an avid Patriots fan, graciously called our daughter-in-law with congratulations.

Our older grandson likes his hoodie. This is what we usually see when we Skype. Note that it is purple. We Skype a lot with him, probably because he's the one who's usually on the computer when we call. 

Our two Chicago granddaughters. I'm not sure the younger would ever have to walk if she didn't want to. Her sister would be perfectly willing to carry her everywhere.

There has been a recent communications development. Our oldest granddaughter has always been too shy to Skype or talk on the phone to us. That has recently changed as you can see from the picture below. She calls us and our daughter several times a day now that she has figured out her mom's phone. This reminds me of some of the cell phone ads on TV. This had such an effect on her grandmother that she started pricing airline tickets to Chicago, but I reminded her that it was 40 degrees colder there with snow. She's decided to keep talking on the phone until the weather gets better in Chicago.

As you can see we have some of the cutest grandkids ever and they are all a delight.