Ramblin' with Roger

B is for Bullying

The Daughter turned me on to this video, Never Ever (The Bully Project) by Keenan West.

The Daughter brought home a bunch of anti-bullying material from school one day this past semester. Much of it came from StopBullying.gov, which defines the behavior as “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.”

At around the same time, I attended a symposium sponsored by some library students that featured, among many others, the ITS Enterprise Information Security Office (EISO), formerly the NYS Office of Cyber Security. It’s a terrible name for an important task. One of its tasks involves fighting cyberbullying, which is “the repeated use of information technology, including e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, chat rooms, pagers, cell phones, and gaming systems, to deliberately harass, threaten or intimidate others. Unlike physical bullying, where the victim can walk away, technology now allows for continuous harassment, from any distance, in a variety of ways.”

The Daughter turned me on to this video, Never Ever (The Bully Project) by Keenan West, a self-described anti-bullying activist from Cincinnati, Ohio. Here are some of the lyrics:

When the going gets tough
And the tough get going
And you feel like you are all alone
When you’re in trouble
Can’t see your way
And you can’t make it
Another day

Through the rain and through the fire
Even in your toughest day
I’ll be right here by your side
I’ll be with you all the way
Through the ups and through the downs
I’ll be here until the end
Keep in mind no matter what
Through it all you’ve got a friend

ABC Wednesday – Round 16

Office JEOPARDY! #2

19 folks, including FOUR from my office, playing this round of near-daily questions arriving in our e-mail. Key rule is that you can’t look up the answer.

See how you would have done.

Today’s Answer is worth $600 and the category is: Political Lingo
The Jeopardy game answer is: An 1868 definition of this term: “Men traveling with little luggage and less character” to profit from the situation.

Hitting my strong suit for an old poli sci major!

What is a carpetbagger?

Nine-way tie for first.
***

Today’s Answer is worth $1000 and the category is: Political Lingo
The Jeopardy game answer is: Calling someone who favors talk over military action this bird dates from the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“Alex” added: “I have no clue if this answer was written correctly. Perhaps it will make sense to some of you. I was totally lost on it. It is written verbatim from the calendar.”

It IS awkwardly phrased, but I got it. I associate the term more with Vietnam.

What is a dove?

Five-way tie for first, with FOUR coming from my office!
***

Today’s Answer is worth $400 and the category is: She Married Him
The Jeopardy game answer is: Ben Affleck.

I’m not really up on celebrity marriages, but Affleck was recently on the news recently, profiled for one of his causes, and it mentioned his wife.

Who is Jennifer Garner?

Still a five-way tie at $2000, with one at $1400 and two at $1000.
***

Today’s Answer is worth $1200 and the category is: She Married Him
The Jeopardy game answer is: William H. Macy

I never would have gotten this one on the actual TV show. I could visualize her, but spent five minutes saying to myself, “What the heck is the name of that blonde woman on Desperate Housewives?” I saw her on the TV show Sports Night and in the movie Transamerica, too. Finally, the light bulb lit up.

Who is Felicity Huffman?

A three-way tie for 1st place at $3200; all librarians! Two at $2200, 1 each at $2000 and $1800, 2 at $1600.
***

Today’s Answer is worth $1000 and the category is: The Hardy Boys
The Jeopardy game answer is: General Hugh Hardy was a 1980s commanding officer of this huge marine base near San Diego.

One of my sisters lives in San Diego, so I’d better get this right! BTW, the categories are often misleading; this has no relation to the Hardy book series.

What is Camp Pendleton?

STILL a three-way tie for 1st place at $4200; all librarians! One each at $3200, $3000, $2800, and $2600.
***

Today’s Answer is worth $200 and the category is: Same first & Last Letter
The Jeopardy game answer is: An invisible emanation, or an intangible quality.

Didn’t know straight off, but started thinking of words that start and end with A and got it.

What is an aura?

Now a two-way tie for 1st, another librarian and me, with the other librarian at $4000. Someone at $3200, and another of my colleagues at $3000. Our office rules!
***

Today’s Answer is worth $600 and the category is: Same first & Last Letter
The Jeopardy game answer is: A noble gas, atomic number 10.

The fact that I had recently written about inert gases, helped as I noted all of them, except helium, end with N. What starts and ends with N? That made it easy for me.

What is neon?

Rankings stay relatively the same.
***

Today’s Answer is worth $1000 and the category is: Same first & Last Letter
The Jeopardy game answer is: Edible fruit matter, or lurid “fiction”.

I’d seen the film. But the e-mailed question was stuck in my spam folder for hours. Glad I found it.

What is pulp?

Pretty easy for all the leaders.
***

Today’s Answer is worth $400 and the category is: Ranks & Titles
The Jeopardy game answer is: There is nothing like this term for a female Knight or the wife of a Lord.

One might see Lord and decide on Lady, and I considered it briefly. Bur sometimes the answer is in the clue. “There is nothing like…” lead me to the correct response.

What is a dame?

For your listening pleasure: There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame from the film South Pacific.

This one tripped up a few people, but not the librarians.
I remained tied for the lead at $6400, with a third librarian at $6000. Two at $4800, one at $4200.
***

Today’s Answer is worth $1200 and the category is: Ranks & Titles
The Jeopardy game answer is: John Busby’s call to Christian service led him from youth leader to national commander of this “army”.

Christian “army”? The quotes suggest it’s part of the answer, and I took the educated guess.

What is the Salvation Army?

Interesting: one librarian didn’t answer this. So FINALLY, alone in first place with $7600, but the other two right behind me at $7200 and $6400, not to mention a couple others at $6000, it’s going to be anyone’s match.
***

Today’s Answer is worth $200 and the category is: The Animal Kingdom
The Jeopardy game answer is: During a chase, these cats take about 3½ strides per second, though the sprints only last about 300 yards.

There’s is no real incentive to answer this. If the second place person gets it right, and I get it wrong, I lose the lead. But the idea of getting every question right is too appealing. So I pick the fastest land mammal. And after the fact, I discover it’s the last question before Final Jeopardy.

What is a cheetah?
***
I go into Final JEOPARDY with a $200 lead, $7800 to $7600. The Final Jeopardy Category is: Characters Who Became Words, which the librarians agree we will either know right away, or not at all. I wager $7400; if I get it right, and the 2nd place person bets it all and gets it right, we will be tied for the win. Or I crash and burn.

Today’s Final JEOPARDY! answer in the category Characters Who Became Words
This money lending character from a 1596 play now refers to any heartless or demanding creditor.

The time frame suggests Shakespeare, and the clue sends me to the character from The Merchant of Venice. But if it’s what I think it is, it’s generally considered an ethnic slur.

Still: Who is Shylock?

Correct! And the person, only $200 behind me, DID bet it all, so we ended up in a tie, at $15,200. That person thanked me for pulling “an Arthur Chu”, referring to this episode of the real game show, in which the “compliance analyst, voiceover artist, and blogger from Broadview Heights, Ohio,” who ended up as 2014 Tournament of Champions 1st runner-up for Season 30, played for the tie rather than the win.

I got all the questions right THIS time. Next round, not nearly so fortunate…

Technology: it means I don’t miss…

Word processing allows me to write this blog every day, even though I am a no better typist than I was 25 or 40 years ago.

Jaquandor waxes philosophic:

Lots of folks often wax poetic about things we’ve lost in our more technological age, like record stores and big, high-service department stores that take up entire city blocks, but what’s something that we’ve ditched in our techno-era that makes you think, “Yeah, I’m glad we don’t do THAT anymore”?

It occurred to me that I’ve seldom described what it was that I have been doing for a living for the past 22 years. The methodology has changed tremendously, and it’s all about the technology.

The New York Small Business Development Center, which started in 1984, now has 24 centers across the state. The business counselors offer free and confidential one-on-one advisement to budding entrepreneurs and established small businesses alike. Since many of the counselors have been entrepreneurs or have worked in banks or other lending institutions, they know a lot of stuff about the business process.

For the things they DON’T know, the counselors contact the Research Network library, which has librarians with access to databases, and even – dare I say it? – books.

In the early days, we’d print out the research from the databases on something called paper. We’d Xerox pages from books. Then we’d put the information in the mail to the counselor. If for some reason, the package was lost, we’d have to do it over. The search would be in our computers, but we’d still have to reprint. And the copying had to be done over.

Let’s talk about the databases. They were on something called CD-ROM discs. We had two dedicated CD-ROM machines, but if I wanted to use the ProQuest database, and someone else was already using it, I had to wait until she or he was finished.

One of the first major improvements in the operation was the implementation of a LAN, or local area network, where we could ALL access the CD-ROMs at the same time, from our own computers, without having to go to the dedicated machine AND we could use a database even of someone else was using it!

As counselors started getting e-mail, we started to save the information and send some of it electronically. This was not as smooth a transition as one might think. For one thing, as mentioned by https://blog.servermania.com/what-is-unmetered-bandwidth-and-when-do-you-need-it/, the capacity of some of the e-mail servers in the late 1990s could be quite limited. Sending all the information we found could mean either having it bounce back to us, or clog things up on the recipient’s end.

Now, we package the data in an Adobe format. It sits on our server, and the counselors get an e-mail notification that the data are there, through a system called WebMQS, which usually works well. It DOES require the recipient to have the latest free Adobe software. Now, if someone hasn’t received the information, the re-sending now takes 5 minutes rather than 50 or more.

At home, my favorite pairing of technologies is the answering machine and caller ID. I hear, or see on the TV, that it’s a call from 800 Service, which the answering machine announces as “eight-zero-zero shervice” – our machine voice has a lisp! and we are oddly entertained by this – we can freely ignore it. But a familiar cell phone number or a call identified from someone known to us, we’ll pick up.

But the #1 favorite technological change I appreciate has to be the word processor, which allows one to correct errors things easily, rather than backspace on the IBM Selectric typewriter to use that tape which vaguely blots out the typos. No more Wite-Out, either.

When I was writing my last paper for library school in 1992, I had arranged the topics 1a, 2a, 3a, 1b, 2b, 3b, 1c, 2c, 3c. But as I continued, I realized it should have been 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2c, 3a, 3b, 3c. I did a massive cut and paste, but it was WAY easier than retyping 46 pages.

And, of course, the same technology allows me to write this blog every day, even though I am no better typist than I was 25 or 40 years ago. Because if I had to do write this all longhand, and then type it in a manner that was readable and accurate, this MIGHT be a monthly blog, rather than a daily one.

A quick musing, though on one thing I DO miss as a result of technology: keeping score in bowling. The software won’t let you, and occasionally, it’s just wrong in terms of counting the remaining pins.

MOVIE REVIEW: Big Eyes

I’m so glad I saw Big Eyes before Amy Adams won the Golden Globe as best Lead Actress in a Motion Picture- Comedy or Musical.

The movie Big Eyes could have been called Big Lie, for that’s what Walter and Margaret Keane shared. The paintings of children with eyes disproportionally huge peepers were painted by Margaret (Amy Adams), but Walter (Christoph Waltz) was superior at schmoozing and promoting; surely him taking credit for her paintings would be OK, wouldn’t it? He liked telling the story of his time painting in Paris, so he could chat up the press about his wife’s art, even if he claimed them as his own.

I’ve been fascinated by the effect of the lie, especially since I read the book Lying by Sissela Bok some years ago. Either the lie eats away at you, or it overtakes you, as the lie becomes the new reality. That’s what happens in Big Eyes.

I’m so glad I saw this movie before Amy Adams won the Golden Globe as Best Lead Actress in a Motion Picture- Comedy or Musical. I really liked the performance, but it’s subtle. Anyone expecting scene-chewing will be disappointed.

Big Eyes is a comedy or musical? Music DOES play a part in that the Cal Tjader group is playing at the hungry i nightclub where Walter initially hawks the paintings. Vince Guaraldi, the pianist/composer most associated with the Charlie Brown music, played with Tjader’s group for a time.

The real situation comedy comes at the end, in the courtroom scene, though the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair narrative was darkly funny, I suppose, with Terence Stamp as a New York City art critic; now HE can chew scenery.

I’ve seen Amy Adams in about a dozen films, from The Muppets to American Hustle. But I’d never seen Christoph Waltz, even though he was also in a Muppets film, plus more serious fare, such as Django Unchained. He’s very good here as, initially, a very sweet and charming guy.

Some guy in my row in the theater said afterward, “That was a Tim Burton film?” It wasn’t particularly Burtonesque, except for one scene, teased in the trailer. This is not a BIG film, telling an epic narrative, but as one critic noted, an “entertaining take on a pop culture footnote.”

One of the negative reviews, by Rick Kisonak, notes: “It suggests Margaret was a browbeaten victim of her husband’s greed while making it clear she was actually a willing participant in the ruse.” I think the critic, and he’s not the only one, missed the point about how subtle manipulation can take place in relationships. He’s also putting post-feminist values in a pre-feminism situation.

Interesting how religion plays a role in Margaret’s narrative, at two different points, to very different results.

Last observation: the story is based on real events. Those paintings of kids with big eyes REALLY creeped me out when I was a child, and they seemed to be EVERYWHERE, part of the real Walter’s marketing genius.

Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It may be true that you can’t legislate integration but you can legislate desegregation.

As I am wont to do, for this anniversary of Martin Luther King’s birthday, I want to recommend another less well-known, but important, speech, the 1966 Ware Lecture: Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution. Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. at the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly in Hollywood, Florida, May 18, 1966.

Here’s just an excerpt:

One of the great misfortunes of history is that all too many individuals and institutions find themselves in a great period of change and yet fail to achieve the new attitudes and outlooks that the new situation demands. There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution.

And there can be no gainsaying of the fact that a social revolution is taking place in our world today. We see it in other nations in the demise of colonialism. We see it in our own nation, in the struggle against racial segregation and discrimination, and as we notice this struggle we are aware of the fact that a social revolution is taking place in our midst.

Victor Hugo once said that there is nothing more powerful in all the world than an idea whose time has come. The idea whose time has come today is the idea of freedom and human dignity, and so all over the world we see something of freedom explosion, and this reveals to us that we are in the midst of revolutionary times. An older order is passing away and a new order is coming into being.

The great question is, what do we do when we find ourselves in such a period?…

First, we are challenged to instill within the people of our congregations a world perspective. The world in which we live is geographically one…

Secondly, it is necessary for the church to reaffirm over and over again the essential immorality of racial segregation. Any church which affirms the morality of segregation is sleeping through the revolution…

The next thing that the church must do to remain awake through this revolution is to move out into the arena of social action. It is not enough for the church to work in the ideological realm, and to clear up misguided ideas. To remain awake through this social revolution, the church must engage in strong action programs to get rid of the last vestiges of segregation and discrimination.

It is necessary to get rid of one or two myths if we’re really going to engage in this kind of action program. One is the notion that legislation is not effective in bringing about the changes that we need in human relations. This argument says that you’ve got to change the heart in order to solve the problem; that you can’t change the heart through legislation. They would say you’ve got to do that through religion and education. Well, there’s some truth in this.

Before we can solve these problems men and women must rise to the majestic heights of being obedient to the unenforceable. I would be the first to say this. If we are to have a truly integrated society, white persons and Negro persons and members of all groups must live together, not merely because the law says it but because it’s natural and because it’s right. But that does not make legislation less important. It may be true that you can’t legislate integration but you can legislate desegregation.
***
I’ll also point you to Martin Luther King Jr.: Remembering a Committed Life by Gary May, “who wrote the book, Bending toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy. May appeared on Moyers & Company [in July 2013] to discuss his book and the agonizing but ultimately victorious struggle to pass the 1965 voting rights legislation — which he described to Bill as ‘a perfect example of the value of collective change to bring about progress in this country, people getting together and being committed and willing to risk their very lives to bring something when the country desperately needs it.'” Note, of course, how the Supreme Court has chipped away at voting rights legislation in recent years, which, I imagine, would have made Dr. King very sad and/or very angry.