Saturday Morning Walkers - July 21, 2007

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all managing to stay cool - it is broiling out here in Colorado! Thanks to Mary, we had an early and relatively cool walk on Saturday morning - we started at Scott Carpenter Park and then took the bike path, cut through Research Park (remember those good old training days!) over Foothills Parkway and back up the bike path back to the park and then over to Starbucks at 30th and Arapahoe.

Book Report:

Barb, Jan and Susan attended a Democratic Women of Boulder event the other night where we heard Michael Isakoff of Newsweek talk about his book Hubris, co-authored by David Corn. He was a dynamic speaker and presented pretty compelling evidence for how the current administration marketed and sold the war in Iraq. We are all looking forward to reading the book.

Review
"Indispensable ... There have been many books about the Iraq War, and there will be many others before we are through. This one, however, pulls together with unusually shocking clarity the multiple failures of process and statecraft."
—WASHINGTON POST

"The most comprehensive account of the White House's political machinations ... fascinating reading."
—THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"A bold and provocative book."
—TOM BROKAW

Jack is enjoying reading Pete Hamill's new book, North River: A Novel. Pete Hamill is a favorite of ours - most often writes about New York City, both fiction and non-fiction. We loved Snow in August, Forever and Downtown. Very much a "real" New Yorker, he expresses so well the unique energy and life of the inhabitants of that city.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The North River is what real New Yorkers call the Hudson. Two blocks from its shore, Dr. James Finbar Delaney lives on Horatio Street in Greenwich Village. He is a GP, servicing the indigent poor. A wounded veteran of World War I, he is despondent that his wife, Molly, has deserted him and that his only child, Grace, has left her son, two-year-old Carlito, in his care. In the dead of winter in the Depression year of 1934, Dr. Delaney knows the cause of death was always life. Delaney is numb from the war and the abandonment of his family. When he saves the life of gangster friend Eddie Corso, Italian hood Frankie Botts is not happy. Delaney can feel the threat to him and his grandson in his bones. To further complicate matters, the FBI shows up looking for Grace. If there's any consolation for Delaney in the chaos that has become his life, it's Carlito and Rose, his Sicilian illegal alien housekeeper, who has become little Carlito's surrogate mother—and Delaney's lover. Soon the North River comes to symbolize Delaney's tormented life, as enemies and loved ones float in it, and Grace, on a liner, returns to New York to further complicate Delaney's new, delicate household. Hamill (Forever; A Drinking Life) has crafted a beautiful novel, rich in New York City detail and ambience, that showcases the power of human goodness and how love, in its many forms, can prevail in an unfair world

Website of the Week - http://www.rootsofempathy.org/ -
Roots of Empathy (ROE) is an award winning, evidence-based classroom program that has shown dramatic effect in reducing levels of aggression and violence among school children while raising social/emotional competence and increasing empathy. The program reaches children from Kindergarten to Grade 8 across Canada, in English and French, in rural, urban, remote and Aboriginal communities both on and off reserve and is being piloted internationally in Australia and New Zealand.

At the heart of the program are a neighbourhood infant and parent who visit the classroom every three weeks over the school year. A trained ROE Instructor coaches students to observe the baby’s development and to label the baby’s feelings. In this experiential learning, the baby is the “Teacher” and a lever, which the instructor uses to help children identify and reflect on their own feelings and the feelings of others. This “emotional literacy” taught in the program lays the foundation for more safe and caring classrooms, where children are the “Changers”. They are more competent in understanding their own feelings and the feelings of others (empathy) and are therefore less likely to physically, psychologically and emotionally hurt each other through bullying and other cruelties. In the ROE program children learn how to challenge cruelty and injustice. Messages of social inclusion and activities that are consensus building contribute to a culture of caring that changes the tone of the classroom. The ROE Instructor also visits before and after each family visit to prepare and reinforce teachings using a specialized lesson plan for each visit. Research results from national and international evaluations of ROE indicate significant reductions in aggression and increases in pro-social behaviour.

Podcast of the Week - Jumping Monkeys - http://www.jumpingmonkeys.com/jumpingmonkeys/podcast/index.html - a podcast dedicated to child-raising and technology - interesting duo of Megan Morrone and Leo Laporte best known from Tech TV.

Word of the Week - Labyrinth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the mazelike structure from Greek mythology. For other uses, see Labyrinth (disambiguation).
In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth (Gk. λαβύρινθος labyrinthos) was an elaborate structure constructed for King Minos of Crete and designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus to hold the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull and which was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus. Daedalus had made the Labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it.[1] Theseus was aided by Ariadne, who provided him with a fateful thread, literally the "clew," or "clue," to wind his way back again.
The term labyrinth is often used interchangeably with maze, but modern scholars of the subject use a stricter definition. For them, a maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage with choices of path and direction; while a single-path ("unicursal") labyrinth has only a single Eulerian path to the center. A labyrinth has an unambiguous through-route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate.

This unicursal design was wide-spread in artistic depictions of the Minotaur's Labyrinth even though both logic and literary descriptions of it make it clear that the Minotaur was trapped in a multicursal maze.[2]

A labyrinth can be represented both symbolically and/or physically. Symbolically it is represented in art or designs on pottery, as body art, etched on walls of caves, etc. Physical representations are common throughout the world, and are generally constructed on the ground so they may be walked along from entry point to center and back again. They have historically been used in both group ritual and for private meditation.



Cooking and Food Report:

This week we're featuring brunch recipes:

Terri's Baked Hash Browns

Baked Hash Browns
2 lbs frozen hash browns (use the cubed potato kind.)
1/2 C melted margarine
1 tsp salt
(pepper)
1/2 C chopped onion
1 pt sour cream (I use light)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 C grated cheese
2 C crushed corn flakes

Mix together 1/4 C margarine, salt, (pepper), onion, sour cream, soup and cheese. Blend well. Grease 9x13 pan and put hash browns in the bottom. Pour sour cream mixture over the potatoes. Mix crushed corm flakes with remaining 1/4 C margarine and put on top. Bake at 350 for 40 - 50 minutes.


Barb's Chili's Relleno Casserole from her friend Sue Alt:

7 oz. canned whole green chilies - split, rinse, de-seed, pat dry (next time I'd double the chilies)
1/2 # each grated Jack and sharp cheddar (I bought the bag of already mixed)
2/3 # spicy sausage - fried & crumbled (I used 1/2 spicy and 1/2 mild and closer to 1 #, doubled)
3 eggs
2 1/4 C milk
1 C Bisquick
Seasoned salt (I didn't add salt - indgrediants were salty enough)

Preheat oven to 325.

Put chilies in bottom of 8 x 11 baking dish.
Top with cheese, then sausage on top. (I might try 2 layers of chilies, cheese, chilies, cheese)
Beat eggs. Blend in milk and Bisquick and pour over all.

Bake 50-55 minutes. Can be done the night before and even frozen before cooking - or after.

Recipe says it serves 6-8. I doubled it and we only ate about 1/3rd of it. Of course, we had so much that everyone was taking small amounts of each dish.


Susan's Fourteener's Granola from the River Run Inn in Salida, Colorado: http://www.lanierbb.com/recipes/data/2197.html

I usually serve with this with yogurt, berries and sometimes my favorite chocolate chips.

That's all for now - have a great week ahead. I may actually do some cooking this week and try out some new recipes that I can share with you.

Love,
Susan