Ramblin' with Roger

Me and Donna George

DONNA L. GEORGE, Staff Member Albany United Methodist Society
Born: 27 Oct 1949; Died: 20 Sep 2002

I had this friend named Donna George. I knew her from work with the socially active Albany United Methodist Society. I don’t know why, but certain people, including a particular pastor, treated her quite badly, taking advantage of her goodwill. I think that, at some level, I felt a lot of sympathy for her. Ultimately, she saw our relationship one way, and I another, yet we managed to maintain a friendship in spite of that.

In 2002, she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Knowing she would be incapable of making decisions very soon, she got three or four of her friends to come to St. Peter’s hospice to explain her wishes that we divvy up her music, books, and art and give them to various buddies before she died, lest her family, from whom she was mostly estranged, could get their hands on them.

I was one of the folks in charge of the music, giving this person some Sinatra, and that person some classical albums, et al. I held onto a Beach Boys box set, which I had given her, and I also kept the Roberta Flack album Quiet Fire, for it contained a cover of the BeeGees’ To Love Somebody, which represented in song what she wished our relationship would be. I requested it on Coverville back in February (Roberta’s 75th birthday), and Brian Ibbott played it at the 18:50 mark.

The minister who gave her such grief was at the funeral, as was another adversary. I was so miffed.

There was an article in the local newspaper about her contributions to social justice, but I haven’t been able to find it. All I could retrieve was this letter to the editor, which is, remarkably, still relevant, unfortunately.

POPULAR ATTITUDES ABOUT POVERTY DEEPLY FLAWED
Albany Times Union (Albany, NY). (July 28, 2000): News: pA14.

A recent letter to the editor pointedly noted that, in a Times Union photo, a customer in a food pantry line was talking on a cell phone. The writer sarcastically asserted how nice it was that this allegedly poor person could have this convenience while waiting for free food.

This strikes me as an instance where what is “fashionable” allows certain groups to be “fair game.” We look at a photo, assume the worst, and crow about it, knowing that many will buy in, based on very limited evidence.

Yes, this person might be the owner of the cell phone. But here are some other possibilities. The person could need to make an important call for a prospective job at the exact time of his/her appointment at the pantry, and someone lent the phone to solve the dilemma. I know a mom who is among the working poor (the fastest-growing pantry population) who makes other sacrifices so she can have a cell phone to be in close touch with her children while she is performing her job duties — which often require her to be on the go. A relative might provide the gift of a cell phone so that a working parent can stay in ready touch with the children.

The possibilities are nearly endless. But popular views of people in poverty tend to allow for none of these. They are poor and they should have nothing — certainly no “frills!” If they do, they are “getting one over” on the system. All of this is part of a false “them” and “us” way of thinking, and being that it is rampant today, is certainly at odds with both secular compassion and the habits of the heart of any faith community I can think of. We can all do better than this.

DONNA L. GEORGE, Staff Member Albany United Methodist Society
Born: 27 Oct 1949; Died: 20 Sep 2002

20 Years a Librarian

When we were on the LAN, it was great!

I started my current job as a business librarian on October 19, 1992. It’s the only librarian job I’ve ever had, though I was a page at the then Binghamton Public Library for seven months back in high school.

After I quit FantaCo and spent a miserable year at Blue Cross, I started being nagged by not one, but THREE people, two librarians and a lawyer, insisting that I should go to library school. I didn’t want to; I had tried graduate school a decade before, in public administration; didn’t much like it. Having no better idea, though, I capitulated.

I found that I enjoyed it greatly. My work-study project for the dean, the late Richard Halsey, included doing a demographic study of the students enrolled in the program. Of the 104 folks in the program, the average age was 37, which was MY age! This was extremely comforting.

Since I was in the dean’s office, one of my professors badgered me to hold a meeting to see if we could re-institute a student association. Pretty much because I called the gathering, I got elected as the president, which meant that I got to cajole people to go to various student/faculty committees.

After I graduated in May 1992, I didn’t have a job, so I continued working at Midnight Comics until I was hired by the NYS Small Business Development Center Research Network, as the third of four librarians providing reference services for SBDCs all over the country. It had been in Georgia, but they lost the competitive contract.

First, I had to learn how to run a BBS, a bulletin board system, when I hadn’t even HEARD of it before that. My phone was also the fax line, so I never knew when I picked up whether I’d get a person’s voice or an earful of static.

In those days, we mailed our information to the counselors. We had a CD-ROM reader for a half dozen discs, but had to take turns using it. When we were finally on a LAN, so that we ALL could use the CDs at the same time, this was astonishing!

We eventually got Internet connectivity, but we could not e-mail much info. For one thing, even in the latter third of the 1990s, not everyone HAD e-mail. For another, the e-mail capacity for most university-based servers seemed to be easily exceeded.

Meanwhile, we also lost the national contract, based on the monetary proposal, despite accolades from counselors. So we were cut from having seven librarians at the peak to four. I remember that this was right around the time I was on JEOPARDY! in November 1998, because two of my colleagues declined to come to the Monday night TV watching party after they had been told they would be laid off the previous Friday.

Now we serve just New York with five librarians. Since everyone has e-mail, we can make documents into PDFs, and we have a site where our counselors can collect the data.

This is our fourth location in 20 years. We started in SUNY Central, downtown on Broadway in the “castle.” Then to 41 State Street mezzanine, which was the most stupidly constructed workspace I’ve ever been in; 41 State Street, 7th floor – the only time I’ve ever had a solo office with a door that closed – I LOVED that office; and for the last seven years, to Corporate Woods, and cubical land. Rumor has it we’ll move again next year when the lease runs out, but I shan’t worry about that until the time comes.

My previous longest job was 8.5 years at FantaCo. The next longest was 13 months at Blue Cross. So 20 years seems like a long time. There were times (the El Gato period, e.g. – the less said, the better) when I thought that would not be possible.

Happy anniversary to me.

Responding to “How to Be a Good Commenter”

The lack of civility on some pages doesn’t just concern me in the moment; it makes me worry about us as a species.

John Scalzi, at his Whatever blog, wrote a very interesting piece called How to Be a Good Commenter. In the main, I agree with his points, though I do have somewhat different priorities.

1. Do I actually have anything to say?… A comment is not meant to be an upvote, downvote or a “like.” It’s meant to be an addition to, and complementary to (but not necessarily complimentary of) the original post.

Well, yes, but… I go to a lot of ABC Wednesday posts, and they’ve posted a picture of a flower, or a waterfall, and if I like it, I might indicate its beauty. And I don’t mind, frankly, an essentially “like” comment to what I write; beats indifference. Maybe I want to thank someone for doing something I can’t do, or say something I wish I had said; I want to affirm the creator for his or her efforts. That noted I do try to abide by the complementary notion. I think the fear of this first rule creates a lot of lurkers, who may visit a page but never say anything.

2. Is what I have to say actually on topic?

Now that I DO care about. I’ve found that some commenters are like campaigning politicians who can, and will, take any issue and mold it into a point from their stump speech, regardless of relevance.

3. Does what I write actually stay on topic?… if you make a perfunctory wave at the subject and then immediately use it as a jumping-off point for your own particular set of hobby horses, then you’re also making the thread suck.

This doesn’t happen on THIS blog, but I’ve seen the phenomenon on my Times Union blog, and indeed on most newspaper or magazine-related blogs. Salon.com is particularly vulnerable to these trolls.

4. If I’m making an argument, do I actually know how to make an argument?… I will at the very least point you in the direction of this list of logical fallacies, for you to peruse and consider. I will also say that in my experience the single most common bad argument is the assumption that one’s personal experience is universal rather than intensely personal and anecdotal.

I love personal anecdotes, but only when it ISN’T used as proof. Gotten that at the TU blog too.

5. If I’m making assertions, can what I say be backed up by actual fact?

I suppose the problem here is that the world seems armed with contradictory theories masked as “facts.” If I express concern about global warming or belief in evolution, I’ll find people who will find assertions to the contrary. This is why some issues become not worth fighting over; the facts are out there if one wants to look.

6. If I’m refuting an assertion made by others, can what I say be backed up by fact?… refutation without substantiation is not refutation at all; it’s just adding to the noise.

Totally agree with that.

7. Am I approaching this subject like a thoughtful human being, or like a particularly stupid fan?… Look, everyone has their biases and inclinations and favorites, and that’s fine. This doesn’t mean you won’t come across as a brainless plumper for your side when you, in fact, plump brainlessly for them in a comment.

Don’t experience this much. Then again, I don’t write that much about sports.

8. Am I being an asshole to others? Yes, I know you think you’re being clever when you are being snide and sarcastic about that other commenter, or about the original poster. I would remind you what the failure mode of clever is. Also, being a complete prick to others in a comment thread is an easy tell to those others that you can’t make a sufficient argument on any other ground than personal abuse. Which is not a good thing for you.

If this were a ranked list – and it may be, I’m not sure – this would be #1 or at worst, #2. The lack of civility on some pages doesn’t just concern me in the moment; it makes me worry about us as a species.

9. Do I want to have a conversation or do I want to win the thread? Some people have to be right, and can’t abide when others don’t recognize their fundamental right to be right, and will thus keep making attempts to be right long after it is clear to every other person that the conversation is going nowhere and the remaining participants are simply being tiresome.

A perfectly good example of that phenomenon is a short post I wrote for the Getting There blog on the Times Union, Lunatic SUV driver harassing cyclists. I thought it was pretty self-evident that the driver was engaging in anti-social behavior. Silly me. The comment that struck me the most was this: “Sharing the road or not it’s a lose-lose if you ever get tangled up with a car. That’s the risk bikers WANT AND TAKE.” The first part IS true, but that bicyclists WANT to take that risk is absurd. I never even bothered to comment at all, as I had outraged readers willing to carry on that task.

10. Do I know when I’m done? I’m not saying you should enter each comment thread with an exit strategy, but on the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt.

As I tend to be conflict-averse, I tend to avoid this particular problem. The worse case of me having to come back to a topic was actually on a Facebook posting in which I noted that there were government people opposed to the art display Piss Christ, and I had to go find proof of this, twice. I remember the controversy, and my need to prove it made me a tad cranky.

I like this comment to Scalzi’s piece. I’ve seen it before, and it continues to be valid.
T — Is it TRUE?
H — is it HELPFUL?
I — is it INSPIRING?
N — is it NECESSARY?
K — is it KIND?

That Big Box of Vinyl

Tosy and Cosh is a blogger that I used to enjoy reading, before he went on sabbatical back in 2009. I just discovered that he is back writing. Somehow, though, I missed his brief return from March to May 2011, during which time he did this piece That Big Box of Vinyl. It was really depressing, because it was subtitled “music you remember your parents listening to.” It included songs such as Colour My World by Chicago, which was his mother and father’s wedding song; it was also the song of my high school prom. Talk about feeling old.

I’ve previously shared some of the singles in my father’s collection. So here are some albums.

Harry Belafonte, as noted, was a huge influence on my father’s time as a singer of folk songs. From this Belafonte discography, I discovered the albums Dad owned. The album links have 30-second clips of each song.

The most important album for him had to have been My Lord What A Morning, from 1960. He performed most of the songs, especially Buked And Scorned. In fact, it was SO important that, just this year, I bought copies of it for the older of my sisters and for me. From Streets I Have Walked (1963), he got the arrangement of This Wicked Race. Dad also owned An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba (1965) and In My Quiet Room (1966).

I noted, a long while back, the importance of Pete Seeger’s “We Shall Overcome” album “recorded live at his historic Carnegie Hall Concert, June 8, 1963″. I found a four-song EP, featuring If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus; Little Boxes; I Ain’t Scared of Your Jail; and We Shall Overcome. I also discovered a too-trimmed version of Tshotsholosa (Road Song). I own a version by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and just this summer, I heard a performance by Peace Train, a South African pair of women, one white, one black, singing this tune.

Finally, Joan Baez, and specifically, the oddly-named Best of Joan Baez, from the early 1960s, was huge. Here’s So Soon in the Morning, with Bill Wood, which my father, sister and I used to perform together.

N is for National Elections: November 6

As a New Yorker, I don’t see many of the ads that run in states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.

If you’re not from the United States, you may not be aware of the fact that the US is having its national election on Tuesday, November 6.

CONGRESS

Approximately 1/3 of the US Senate is up for election. Senators are elected on a statewide basis for six-year terms.

All 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for election. The number of districts in each state is dependent on its population. The breakdown changes every 10 years, after the decennial Census. The results of the 2010 Census will alter the makeup of the House for the 2012 election.

From the Census Bureau:
“Among the eight states gaining seats, Texas will gain four seats and Florida will gain two seats. The other six states (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington) will each gain one seat. Of the ten states losing seats, two states, New York and Ohio will each lose two seats. The other eight states (Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) will each lose one seat.”

Even the states that have the same number of seats will have to change its Congressional boundaries (except for the states with only one House member, of course), to reflect population shifts within the state, based on the doctrine of One person, one vote.

THE PRESIDENCY

The Democratic Party is fielding the incumbent, President Barack Obama of Illinois, with his running mate, Vice-President Joe Biden of Delaware. The Republican Party candidate is putting up former Massachusetts governor Willard Mitt Romney, with his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Since about the year 1800, the President and VP have run as a ticket. There are a number of “third party” candidates who have approximately a zero percent chance of winning the election.

The nomination process is rather peculiar for both major parties. Some states have what are called caucuses, while other states have primaries. But even the rules of primaries vary from state to state, with some having “closed” primaries (only members of that party can vote) while others have more “open” primaries, (voters who are not enrolled in either party may vote, and in a few states, voters from the OPPOSING party may participate!)

The Presidential election is not decided by the popular vote nationally, but rather by the vote in each state, which gets representatives to something called the Electoral College. Each state gets electors equal to its number of members of Congress (House plus Senate); the District of Columbia also gets three electors.

In 49 of 51 geographies, except for Maine and Nebraska, there are winner-take-all contests. Thus, some states are not generally contested by the candidates. New York, it is surmised, will go to Obama; Texas is safe for Romney. Therefore, the race is generally run in the so-called battleground states.

As a New Yorker, I don’t see many of the Presidential campaign ads that run in states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. A good political map can be seen at Real Clear Politics.
***
Re: “the dozens of political tell-alls…that appear each election cycle.” The Center of Gravitas Best and Worst Seller List helps “you navigate which books would be likely to fly off the shelves and which would be reduced to the bargain bin.”

ABC Wednesday – Round 11