I STOP HERE

     Computers rule.

    Late last evening my son called my attention to the incoming administration's choice of Janette  Nesheiwat as surgeon general.

    Dr. Nesheiwat's resume includes a reference to the Joplin tornado. Both my son and I being survivors of the Joplin tornado, we were interested in Dr. Nesheiwat's connection. I went to the Olathe Library website, tried to suggest a purchase.

    Received a 404 Not Found message. Went then to Ask a Librarian. Suggested the book.

    The reply: Thanks for reaching out to the library. To clarify, are you wanting to put in a purchase suggestion for this item?

    From me: Yes, purchase suggestion, but when I clicked on that link, I got 404 NOT FOUND message. The author is Trump's choice for Surgeon General.

    From the library: Here's another link to the purchase suggestion form. I hope that works for you! Please let me know if you need any further help. (Note: you may have to copy and paste this link into your browser.)

    From me: Thank you, but this is as far as I am going. Either take the suggestion from here or not. The author, Janette Nesheiwat, of Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine, is the incoming administration's choice for US surgeon general. I thought it a book the library should have.

    From the library: You're welcome to do whatever you choose, but please note that the only way we accept suggestions is through the suggestion form on our website. If you would like to see the book on the shelf, you'll have to fill that out. Thanks and have a great day.

    From me: Janette Nesheiwat's previous experience seems to have a connection to the Joplin tornado. My son and I, being survivors of that tornado, were mildly curious. In addition, Dr. Nesheiwat has written a book about medicine, Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine. You are sending me instructions for going back and using a "suggested purchase" link.

May I suggest an alternative reply from the library:

Thank you for calling this book to our attention. As it was written by a doctor who will probably be serving as the next U.S. Surgeon General, it is an important book to have available on our shelves. We apologize for the inconvenience you experienced when trying to access our "suggested purchase" form and will do our best to have it functioning the next time you wish to suggest a purchase.

    From the library: I submitted a suggestion for purchase on your behalf. You should receive an email copy of the submission.

Have a nice day,

    Computers rule.

PRINT IS COMING BACK

     Looks like we may be seeing the return of printing. Maybe not in the form of newspapers -- yet. Can cursive handwriting be far behind?

    Retailers of luxury goods are returning to their marketing strategies of sending out print catalogs. Lora Kelly writes: But completely ignoring a catalog that appears on your stoop or in your mailbox is tougher. Simply put, you have to pick it up, even if you are planning to throw it in the recycling bin—and brands hope that you might flip through some glossy photos along the way.

    Admittedly the above quote is from Atlantic magazine, which just announced they are returning from ten copies per year to twelve issues-- in print -- every year.

    Cursive handwriting -- actually putting your fingers to paper -- is a deliberative action quite unlike keyboarding. You may make mistakes in spelling, or in grammar, but you will not mistakenly write tomatoes when you mean tomorrow.

UNSUBSCRIBING?

    Unsubscribing? I am doing just that.

    From most of the emailers I have been receiving emails from, some nearly a dozen a day. I will keep Senator Jeff Merkley from Oregon and Cory Booker from New Jersey because they sometimes send me tidbits about the temperature of Congress for the day.

    The others, I do have a reason for unsubscribing. I am pulling myself back into my cave. I'll come out when the new administration lowers the costs on food, gas and housing, and sends Putin home.

A TURNING POINT?

    A watershed?

    I am a new subscriber to the magazine, the Atlantic. I was informed, more than once, that subscribers will receive only ten magazines during the year. My first two issues have hardly arrived in my mailbox, both on the same day, when the editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, announced that because of an increase to over a million subscribers, and a substantial increase in advertising revenue, Atlantic will return to 12 issues per year.

“The greatness of print and especially a print magazine is that it sits still for you,” Goldberg said. “It doesn’t beep and flash and demand that you do things. It’s there to be read and enjoyed. People still derive intellectual and aesthetic pleasure from print.”

    Is this a foretelling that the seekers of news may be running away from the ephemeral internet or television and returning to something that stays put? Words in print cannot be altered -- what you read is there to stay.

    Does this signify a rebound of newspapers and news magazines? The Kansas City Star/Times still throws the morning newspaper in my driveway.

FALLING, FALLING

     Why do I keep falling for clickbait?

    The first screen will show a guy in a white coat, so you assume he is a prominent doctor (when in truth he has no patients and is eager to earn a few $$$, maybe he isn't a doctor anyway, we don't see his credentials hanging on a nearby wall). The words on the screen read that you should never eat avocados again. READ MORE. Click. And here is an advertisement for cruise trips. (You did do a little search on cruise lines yesterday.)

    A slight scroll and there appears a description of an avocado (as if you have never seen an avocado before). Another scroll to reveal an advertisement for the best in vacuum tools. If you want to learn more about avocados, stay on course, don't get detoured into exploring vacuum tools.

    More scrolls, more advertisements and occasionally another sparse paragraph warning you about eating avocados, but not yet the reason. Advertisements to the right and the left, sometimes covering portions of the text about avocados. You should be able to remove the advertisements by clicking on an X, which is sometimes hard to find, if it exists at all.

    Why do I keep falling for clickbait? 

ARMISTICE

Armistice. Latin. armistitution, a short truce.

This Kansas plain has been blessed

by the blood of those who left.

Some brought home in boxes. Others never.

Island Mound, San Juan Hill, Chateau Thierry,

Normandy, Coral Sea, Heartbreak Ridge,

Saigon, Baghdad , , , Kabul , , , Kandahar . . .

So many places. So many heroes.

We honor their memory with our lives.

We see their faces in the stars.

(First published in To The Stars Through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices.)

SUMMER BLOOMS

    My Aunt Genevieve never had much time for gardening, but every where she lived, every spring, she managed to plant a couple of rows of colorful zinnias in an area where they would be visible to a passerby. Throughout the summer the abundant blooms provided welcome color.

    A bonus would be their availability for bouquets or flower arrangements to adorn the fireplace mantel or the center of the dining room table. Sometimes a bloom or two, along with a bit of greenery -- matured asparagus stalks if any growing nearby -- went with her to pay someone a visit. Like my Aunt Genevieve, zinnias were tough and hardy.

WHAT NOW?

     We have an antiquated telephone. No, it's not as antique as a rotary dial, but it's one of those that when you hold it to your ear, you can't see the buttons. Well, including mobile phones, I guess all modern phones are like that nowadays.

    The recorded voice gives you an option . . . press one . . . so you hold the phone away from your ear so you can see the buttons. You press one and by the time you get the phone back to your ear you have missed the first few words of the next bit of recorded voice.

    Last Friday my doctor (well, not an M.D. , but a P.A.) changed one of my prescriptions. A recorded Walgreens voice called me this afternoon. The voice said the prescription was ready to be picked up, but it needed to ask me a few questions. Would I please enter my birthdate?

    What? Take the phone away from my ear and painstakingly enter my birthdate? In what exact format did the voice want my birthdate? I remember the pleasure of slamming a rotary phone down on a boyfriend who jilted me. Can you derive any satisfaction out of slamming the phone down on a recorded voice?