seek a newer world

Memorare

2009-02-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

This lovely word is Latin--an exhortation to remember. I use it to address the Pope, who recently "rehabilitated" three rogue bishops, among them a Holocaust denier. I knew the Church was in trouble when the College of Cardinals elected a former member of the Nazi Youth to the papacy. I'm as naturally suspicious of that as of people from South America with German names. And because of this association embedded in his past, this pope, of all men, should be more conscious that his actions are judged by a finely tuned standard, sensitive to the slightest quiver in the direction of Nazi sympathy.

When questioned, the Vatican explained that the bishops had agreed to adhere to the Church in matters of doctrine and papal authority, and that personal opinions, however reprehensible, are not subject to sanction. Oh really? An institution that asserts its moral authority in virtually every aspect of life cannot take a stand by excluding from its clerical ranks those who deny that the systematic murders of millions of Jews ever happened?

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me say to people who ask if I've fallen away from the Church, that no, in fact, the Church fell away from me.

But in truth I cannot deny my Catholicism. It's imprinted on me and part of what defines me. Through my family upbringing, my parochial schooling, my seven years in the convent, I have oriented my life to the rhythms of the liturgical calendar. The time--the precious time--that I spent in the convent, and especially in the novitiate, gave me a much deeper understanding of God, the Who Is, and the closer I came to that, the freer I became in matters of rubric and ritual. But I still feel a sense of guilt on behalf of the Church when matters such as this arise.

The Church's troublesome ambivalence in the matter of the Holocaust, the questions surrounding the actions of prelates who may have assisted former Nazis in escaping the post-War dragnet, the role the Church played historically in creating a centuries-old cultural climate of anti-Semitism: all of these issues tug at the collective conscience of Catholics. In his book, "Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews," former Jesuit (and writer of some of my favorite fiction) James Carroll writes a searing analysis on this subject. I highly recommend it.

The most consistent message I've heard and read from Jews regarding the Holocaust is that we must never forget that it happened; we must not let time erode the horror, or form a protective scar over the wound. Allowing it to become ancient history will make us less vigilant in the present. Remember, they exhort us: remember.

In turn, I say to Pope Benedict: Memorare, memorare.

Bill

2009-02-12T12:23:00.000-08:00

Twenty years ago today my husband Bill died. I won't write a lot here, because once I start I could go on forever about him.

I just want to acknowledge him today, and to say that I still miss him, sometimes viscerally. I miss the person he was, and the person I was with him, and the person our marriage was. Every day I had with him was the happiest day of my life. I was never so completely myself--my best self--as with him. The only way I can describe the deep contentment I experienced with him was that I felt he knew me the way we think God knows us--all our concupiscence and faults and sins, and all our potential and goodness and virtue. It's freeing beyond description to be known and loved that way. How lucky I was. He made me more gentle and kind, and he would say I made him more socially conscious and responsible, since I was always dragging him out to picket and protest and leaflet against war and nukes and the mistreatment of the poor and disaffected.

When my wonderful friends of more than forty years--Beat, Ellen, Kathy, Sandy, Sharon, and Sue--got together last fall, we talked briefly about him, and my thought that the concept of eternity means that although I am trapped in time, and experience his absence in time, he is in eternity, and therefore doesn't feel the loss: I am always present to him. At Christmas, my sister Margaret gave me an Andrea Bocelli CD, and we cried as she shared a wonderful song she said made her think of Bill and me: "the moment won't last..." but "like stars across the sky, we were meant to shine..."

Bill, of course, had already had this thought about time and eternity. Here is one of his poems, written October 28, 1984:

I think God put us in time
so that He'd always have something
for which to forgive us.

Only in time could a lost opportunity,
a lost friendship, a lost watch,
evoke the same sadness
so long since the loss.

So persistent is time's hegemony
that to break free makes us believe
we could be saints.

And in that, we are.

I kiss you today, Bill, across time and into eternity.

The Farrell Review of Non-Fiction Read 2008

2009-02-07T08:07:00.000-08:00

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard
This was the best non-fiction I read in 2008. Packed with adventure, it illuminates the fearless, risk-seeking side of TR's character and, at the same time, his ability to lead: to make decisions that sacrifice personal comfort and friendships for the sake of the enterprise.

In 1912, battered and bruised by the drubbing he'd received as a third-party presidential candidate, Roosevelt accepted an invitation to explore one of the many tributaries of the Amazon. His guide (and someone should write a book about THIS guy) and co-leader of the expedition was Colonel Candido Rondon, born a poor Indian, who joined the Brazilian army and made himself into the country's most celebrated Amazonian explorer. He it was who had so aptly named the uncharted tributary "the river of doubt."

Poorly planned and supplied, the trip soon encountered difficulties, requiring TR and Rondon to split the expedition in two. This meant that some of the men, among them TR's friends, had to miss the opportunity to trace the river to its source. As they progressed, they discovered countless flora and fauna, beautiful, exotic, and some deadly. Their canoes were unworthy of the rough and tricky rapids, they were stalked by cannibals, and Roosevelt came down with a leg infection that nearly killed him.
Yet they soldiered on, overcame numerous near-disasters, found the source of the River of Doubt, and left us with a thrilling tale.

Millard has researched this story meticulously, and tells it clearly, with a keen sense of its dramatic elements. Well done.

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, by Gordon S. Wood
This is a fascinating study of the amazing men who founded our country. We all know the basic outlines of their stories, but those of us who can't stop reading about them also know that each new book reveals something new, or discovers a lode not yet fully mined, or treats the subject from a slightly different perspective. Wood gives us the usual suspects, but his approach is to analyze each of their characters with a view to understanding how their personal gifts and foibles gave rise to their prominence in the forming of the new nation.

We frequently hear that Washington's refusal to run again after his second term was a turning point that set the nation on the course of true adherence to the rule of law and not of men, but Wood makes the same case for an earlier moment: when Washington handed his sword to Congress after the war. This act was virtually unprecedented--it was more or less accepted that a winning general would seize his country's leadership. Wood explores this kind of thing with each of the country's founders.

An important concept I grasped while reading this book is the organic nature of our republic. We tend to think that there was a period in the country's infancy--a few years, or the first few administrations--when it was as perfect an institution as possible. What didn't exist then, in that ideal moment, was the erosion that has set in over the years--the sniping between the parties, the pork, the reliance on polls over principles. In fact it's never been perfect, and shameful moments have been succeeded by shining ones. The glory of America is that we have that ideal always before us, that we are forever trying to achieve a "more perfect union." Our ambition is so bold because of the civility and intelligence of the founders.

This is not an academic treatise--Wood's writing is clear, concise, and accessible. Thet's not to say the book isn't educational in the best sense of the word: it explains big ideas, provokes further thought and reading, and inspires intellectual curiosity.

Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford, by Julia Fox
I don't know whether it's Shakespeare, or George Bernard Shaw, or Winston Churchill, or Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton in "Beckett," or Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn in "The Lion in Winter," or the countless historical mysteries I devour, but I love British history. And one of the richest periods in terms of dramatic events and compelling characters is the one Julia Fox writes about here.

Jane Boleyn was not Anne Boleyn's sister, but her sister-in-law, married to Anne's brother. Her life is an abject lesson in the perils of proximity to power. Born into the aristocracy herself, the daughter of a lord, Jane was familiar with the world of the privileged and with the stresses that accompanied it. She was expected to marry well, and she did--the progeny of Thomas Boleyn were considered good matches because of his closeness to the King. Women of the highest rank were brought into the royal household to serve as ladies-in-waiting to the Queen, and Jane was already ensconced there serving Catherine of Aragon when the fireworks started over her flirtatious sister-in-law.

Despite her relation to the mercurial Anne, Jane came through the controversy basically unscathed, with her head still attached. Though banished for a brief period, she came back to serve as lady-in-waiting to the next two queens, Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves. It was her misfortune to be there when the immature Kathryn Howard married the King.

What could Jane do when asked to serve as go-between for Kathryn and her young lover? If she refused, she could be dismissed and disgraced on a trumped up charge. If she assented and was caught, she would be put to death as a traitor. Jane made her choice, passed letters arranging trysts, and paid with her life.

I like this book because it tells a well-known story from the point of view of someone who is usually relegated to minor status, and gives insight into the real dangers lying in wait for those in the royal household.

Fox has done her research, and her knowledge and love of the period shine through this gripping tale of intrigue and betrayal.

The Radioactive Boy Scout, by Ken Silverstein
The terrifying sub-title of this book is "The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor." Yes. In 1995, a 17-year-old in Michigan built a nuclear reactor that had to be dismantled by a federal EPA crew in hazmat suits, after they had evacuated the neighborhood.

David Hahn was a troubled boy, emotionally neglected by his divorced parents. His closest relationship was with his grandfather, who gave him, when he was in elementary school, the "Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments." A spark was ignited, and his curiosity led over the years to more and more complicated experiments. He was intelligent in an unconventional way--he did poorly in school except in science, and consequently his teachers ignored him rather than fostering or channeling his obvious enthusiasm for all aspects of the subject in which he excelled. They should have been suspicious: he had already earned an Atomic Energy boy scout badge, and his classmates called him "Glow Boy."

Shifting back and forth between his parents' households, he was able to hide a lot of his dubious activity. Perhaps the most amazing and frightening part of his obsession was the ease with which he conned scientists and corporations into sending him samples of dangerous materials. By the time his home-made breeder reactor was discovered, his parents' homes and he himself were highly radioactive.

Hahn graduated from high school and enlisted in the Navy, but when he got out he continued experimenting and was arrested in 2007 for stealing and hoarding smoke detectors, a source of americium. Look up his mug shot on the internet and see the effects long-term exposure has had on his face.

Silverstein tells this story at a brisk pace, and along the way manages to teach the reader quite a bit about the history and science of atomic and nuclear energy. This is a really fascinating book, but worrisome. Parents, teachers, and the corporate and scientific communities demonstrated a cluelessness and an irresponsibly casual attitude toward David Hahn's atomic fixation.

What, really, are those kids next door to YOU up to?

Rah Rah Rahm

2009-01-10T15:58:00.000-08:00

I'd better admit this from the start: I'm a Rahn Emanuel groupie. I liked him when he was part of the Clinton Administration, and even more when he asserted himself as a Congressman and led that Democratic comeback in 2006. Then I saw him with his equally impressive brothers on Charlie Rose, and it was all over.

Why do I like him so much? First, because he's smart. Second, he's a wily politician with a knack for achieving his goals rather than just blathering on about them and making up excuses for failure. Third, I think he really wants to do good, to make policy that helps ordinary, middle class people and those in the forgotten underclass, who so need a champion. Fourth--and most important, in my current mood--he won't take any guff. (Source for "guff:" eighth grade teacher Sister Mary Alfreda, as in, "Sit there and study the map until you can name the state capitals, and don't give me any of your guff!")

My sister feels the same way about her New York Senator, Chuck Schumer. He's tenacious, she tells me, and won't let the Republican right-wingers push him around. And he takes care of New York. He doesn't back down just because people throw around phrases that seem to paralyze other Democrats, like "east coast intelligentsia," and "do-gooder liberal." Right now she's hoping that he won't let the NFL take her beloved Bills away from Buffalo without a fight.

Rahm strikes me as a take-no-prisoners kind of guy. I believe he won't get distracted from the new Administration's agenda to fight about silly things like the culture wars when the problems we face are so dire.

Earlier in this blog I expressed my hope that President-Elect Obama would demonstrate good judgment in appointing people to positions of power. Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, Leon Panetta--wow. My hopes are soaring.

But really, Mr. Obama, the truth is: you had me at Rahm.

The Farrell Review of Fiction Read 2008

2009-01-09T16:14:00.000-08:00

North River, by Pete Hamill
This was the best fiction I read last year. I first came to appreciate Hamill's creative and narrative gifts when I read "Snow in August," and here he proves again his talent for making a time and place live in the reader's imagination. In 1930's New York, an Irish-American doctor, abandoned by his depressed wife, discovers that his estranged daughter has left his baby grandson in his care. He hires an Italian immigrant woman as nanny, and goes about his rounds, attending to the physical and emotional needs of his working class neighborhood by the North River, haunted all the while by questions surrounding his wife's disappearance: has she run away, or has she committed suicide?
The fantastic miracle in "Snow in August" is not repeated here. The miracle in "North River" is of the more common variety: as life goes on, bonds grow among the doctor, the nanny, and the baby boy, creating a family nurtured by love and the sacred ordinary.
Although this story could essentially be set anywhere, anytime, Hamill's evocative prose makes the reader believe, and fervently wish, that it really all happened then, in the 1930's, and there, by the North River in New York City.

The Spies of Warsaw, by Alan Furst
Furst writes a wonderful series set in World War II and the years leading up to it. There are no recurring characters, but the theme is the same: ordinary people are thrust into circumstances requiring heroic choices that endanger their lives. In this novel, it is the winter and spring of 1938, and a French officer, a decorated veteran of the First World War, is assigned to the French embassy in Warsaw, where he and his counterparts in other nation's embassies spy on each other and especially the Germans. He is confronted with the plight of a Jewish married couple, delegates from Russia, who have been called home to certain death in one of Stalin's infamous purges. He runs a dangerous operation to get them safely to Paris. Just fifteen months later, of course, the Nazis overran Poland, and the reader cannot help but wonder what happened to the people in this story. But that's the poignancy of each of Furst's novels: there are no epilogs, just characters living in their time, doing what they can to prevent or disrupt a Nazi hegemony over Europe.

Death Comes for the Fat Man, by Reginald Hill
Nobody, but nobody, writes as well as Hill. This is the British mystery series featuring Andy Dalziel, the obnoxious and overbearing and, somehow, lovable Superintendant, and his sidekick, the more refined and educated Peter Pascoe. Andy has been severely wounded in a terrorist bombing, and hovers dramatically and hilariously between life and death throughout the story, while Peter must investigate and discover the villains. Hill's mysteries are intriguingly plotted, but that's not really the point. The enjoyment for this reader is the delicious use of language, the fun that Hill has with vocabulary and wordplay. English is his instrument, and he plays it like Yo Yo Ma at the cello. Prodigiously.

The Last Temptation; The Mermaid's Singing; The Torment of Others; The Wire in the Blood, by Val McDermid
It doesn't often happen that one discovers an author by seeing a movie or television series; it's usually the other way around. But last spring I began watching the two-hour episodes under the series title, "Wire in the Blood," on the BBC Channel. I was hooked by the first one I saw, noticed in the credits that the series is based on books by Val McDermid, and simply had to read her. These are psychological thriller mysteries, and not for the faint of heart. Dr. Tony Hill (played by Robson Green in the series--curiously attractive!), is a psychological profiler attached to the Bradford CID in northern England. He and his team pursue deviously clever, but seriously deranged, serial killers. Hill's disadvantage is that many of the rank and file are skeptical of his specialty; his dubious advantage is that he can put himself into the mind of his prey, forming an empathetic bond that inflicts a terrible mental torture.
I realized that I came into the television series in the 4th or 5th season, so I'm now frantically looking for the earlier ones I missed. Thank the library gods for ILL!

The Painter of Battles, by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Perez-Reverte is probably more famous for his delightful series featuring the daring escapades of 16th century Captain Alatriste. This book is set in present day. A solitary man lives in a tower high above the Spanish coast. There, he is painting a mural around the inner circular wall: a mural depicting the horrors of wars throughout history. This painting emphasizes the brutality of death, not the glory of battles and famous heroes. A disaffected war photographer, he has profited from a series of books featuring his photos. Haunted by the wartime death of his colleague and lover, he paints to exorcize the demons that possess him, especially his memories--in Africa, the Middle East, and Serbia--of getting the picture rather than saving a life. A Croatian man who was the subject of one of his most famous, prize-winning photos, has stalked him to confront him with this question: "How did the photograph change your life?" It has obviously affected this man's life--tracked down by the Serbs, he was tortured and left with no family or country. He tells the painter that he has come to kill him. Their subsequent conversations, their subtle dance of thrust and parry, of accusation and acceptance, are deeply unsettling.

Careless in Red, by Elizabeth George
I've been a faithful reader of George's Thomas Lynley mysteries over the years, but lately she has really strained my loyalty. The first books were fascinating, tightly-plotted puzzles, with interesting back stories for the main characters. I eagerly followed the developments in their lives as much as I followed the mysteries. About four books ago, I began to feel uncomfortable at the level of angst experienced by each main character, and at what I perceived to be the secondary role of the mystery in each book.
I realize that "too much sunshine makes a desert," but isn't the reverse also true? There is no let-up to the agony. It seems to me that drama--even tragic drama--is enhanced by lighter, comedic moments. Here we have Tommy, desperately trying to cope with a tragic loss, walking the coast of Cornwall in an effort to numb his pain. He finds a body on the beach and gets drawn against his will back into detection. I figured out pretty quickly "whodunit," but worse, I didn't care. There is not one likeable character in this book, always excepting Tommy's partner Barbara Havers; they snarl and snipe at each other, and suffer--I almost wrote "untold," but that's the problem, it's told to excess--psychological and emotional problems, and we're treated to all their inner thoughts as they work through them. George has a sense of humor; every now and then she lets a character get in a zinger. But this series has descended into bathos, and now is little more than a novelistic soap opera. Only great reviews will entice me to read the next installment.

Next: non-fiction read in 2008.

Doing the Typo Tango

2009-01-07T16:06:00.000-08:00

I'm back after a long hiatus, forced upon me by a computer that--well, it didn't crash, but it didn't work, and the problem is too complicated and, really, too boring for me to spend time here attempting to describe it.

I now have a laptop hooked up through the cable connection, and have spent the last couple of weeks trying to adapt to the keyboard. I suppose practice will increase my comfort level, but in the meantime the typos are flying.

Once, while writing a recommendation for a friend, I thought I'd see how well I could touch-type--not once looking at the keyboard. The results were hilarious, with coinages such as "cherful personalitu" becoming catchphrases between my friend and me.

But I must post--as usual, I have much to say. I think I'll catch the typos, but if some slip through, I hope the reader will accept them with a cherful personalitu.

Happy New Year.

Macavity

2008-12-03T19:42:00.000-08:00

"Stand back! Let me handle this." He moved forward assertively.

"No!" I cried. "You don't know about these things. You'll get hurt!"

"Don't be scared," he said. "I'll have this taken care of in no time. Look, it's just a flitty little thing. Lots of fun to play with." He jumped up and batted at it. It buzzed at the screen and swooped down at my hero, who promptly scampered behind the couch.

"It's a hornet, you see, Macavity. They sting."

His head popped out from the corner of the couch. "You won't let him get me, will you?"

This is what I love about Macavity. He's a take-charge kind of cat, but he's not afraid to show his vulnerabilities. And he doesn't see or acknowledge any contradictions in his reactions to changing circumstances.

What am I doing with a cat? I'm not, or so I once thought, a cat person. A little over ten years ago, I happened to be walking through the library when I overheard Paulette say to Cyndi, "And if we can't find anyone to take him, we'll have to take him to the pound." I could have just shrugged and moved on. Why didn't I? Too late to ponder "what might have been" now.

I stopped and asked. Paulette explained that her husband had discovered a mother with her litter living in the wood pile in their backyard. They had been bringing plates of food out, but a few days later the family had disappeared--except for one little ginger and white head poking out from the wood pile. Paulette's cat had feline AIDS, so they couldn't bring the kitten inside. They kept feeding it in the backyard, but the weather was turning colder, so they knew they had to find a home for him or take him to the pound.

The impulse erupted--I have no rational explanation. Bring him in, I said, and introduce us, and I'll take him home and try to live with him. I spent the next few days scurrying around buying litter and kitten food, and Paulette said she'd lend me her carrier until I got one.

Not at all sure this would work, I told Paulette if it didn't work out I'd find him a home--my step-daughter runs her own personal rescue league and will take all strays. She married a man of similar sensibilties, and now they and my two grandchildren have a dog, three or four cats, a gecko, and some other amphibian thingy.

The morning Paulette brought the kitten into the library I was quite nervous--animals pick up on all sorts of feelings, I'd heard, and he would sniff out my reluctance and uncertainty. Not to worry! He had the situation well in hand. He greeted me with a purr that sounded like an over-flying jet, sniffed and batted at my hand, and gave me that wide-eyed, I'm-so-frightened-won't-you-help-me kitten look.

Thus conquered, I took him home, where he easily established himself as Lord of All He Surveyed. He loves to supervise my work, especially the changing of the sheets, which ripple invitingly when they're shaken out.

His behavior is quite admirable: He's prudently wary, approaching anything unfamiliar with caution. He won't be coaxed into doing something he doesn't want to do, and guilt is a foreign concept to him. He expresses his needs openly and without manipulation, making it plain that he wants to cuddle, be petted, or play.

I often wonder what happened to the rest of that litter. The mother abandoned him, the vet told me, because she judged that he was least likely to survive. Ten years and going strong. The twist of fate that brought him into my life was not a cruel one--it saved him, and gave me an endlessly entertaining companion.

Having read this (he really is precocious), he tells me to write not "companion," but "friend." Then he commands me to get away from that computer and take up my book, so he can settle comfortably in my lap.

Be right there, Macavity my friend.

Change You Can Count On

2008-11-20T21:02:00.000-08:00

My first job (not counting my disastrous stint as a 15-year-old mother's helper) was at Rocky Point Amusement Park. There I sold tickets--ten cents each, eleven for a dollar--in the Upper Booth, right in front of the Wildcat. I learned to make change by counting up to the amount the customer had handed me. For example, if the total was $15.50, and the customer handed you a $20, you were supposed to make change by counting out loud, handing them $.50 and four ones, saying, "Fifteen fifty. That's sixteen (the $.50), seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty." It was important to make change correctly, because you started with a $20 cash drawer, and had to "prove the drawer" (balance it) at the end of your shift. Or you heard about it from John Ferla, park manager.

I needed to do it that way--counting up--because arithmetic was not my strong suit, and still isn't. Some people can do arithmetical calisthenics in their heads, subtracting or multiplying effortlessly. Not me. I need pencil and paper, or a nice simple method like counting up.

I wish people today would make change that way, but not for the reason you may think. This is not a complaint about how kids today can't make change. It's too bad that they can't, but since the cash register does the arithmetic for them, you can't blame them, really. But they give it back exactly the way it's displayed for them--dollars first, and then coins. Using the example I gave above, the display says $4.50, so they hand you four dollars and fifty cents all together, with the coins balanced precariously on top of the dollars.

As a customer, I like getting my coin change first, before my dollars, because I find it less awkward. They do it the other way, coins atop the dollars, and I'm constantly dropping my coin change on the ground at the Dunkin Donuts drive thru. Well, I was. Now I tell them how I want the change handed to me. They roll their eyes ("Another quirky customer--what we have to put up with!"), but I don't care. I've got my change without having to undo the seat belt, open the car door, grab what I can off the ground, and bang my head on the way up.

And that's change I can count on.

Sister Mary Grammaticus Explains the Apostrophe

2008-11-14T17:03:00.000-08:00

OK, class, settle down and come to order. Today we will deal with the apostrophe.

What is this fascination people have with the apostrophe?

They slap it on, throw a dash of it in, sprinkle it on top, and drizzle it over the whole concoction as if it's a seasoning they think will bring out the flavor of what they've written.

As with any seasoning, its overuse merely confuses the palate and ruins the taste.

There are two common uses of the apostrophe: to connote possession and to indicate contraction. It is also used, but only occasionally, to signify a plural.

Here are examples:

Possession: Your brother's hat is on the table. The Democratic Party's candidate was successful in his campaign.
Exceptions: We don't use an apostrophe with yours, ours, theirs, or its. That hat is yours. These hats are ours. Those hats are theirs. This hat has lost its feather.
Common mistakes: Writing a plural as if it's a possessive. These hats' are ours. Our special today is hot dog's. If you write these or anything similar, you're confusing your reader. Are you telling us you have hot dogs, or are you telling us your hot dogs have something, but you've forgotten to say exactly what they have?

Contraction: You're. When you write this, you're shortening the phrase, "you are." They've. When you write this, you're shortening the phrase, "they have." It's. This is a shortening of "it is." Could've. This is a shortening of the phrase, "could have," as in the sentence: "I could've been a contender."
Common mistakes: Writing "your" when one means "you're." People will write, "Your driving me crazy." No, YOU'RE not. "Could of." Since "could've" is a contraction of "could have," what exactly is conveyed by "could of?" Nobody knows, as could, should, and would, followed by "of," means absolutely nothing in the English language.

If you are hopelessly confused by the rules governing the use of the apostrophe, please follow this general rule: when in doubt, don't use it. Please.

Class dismissed...for now.

The Arc of History Bends Toward Justice

2008-11-04T19:58:00.000-08:00

My sister has quoted these words of Martin Luther King, Jr. to me a couple of times in the past few weeks. She said it again tonight as we talked long distance to wish each other a happy election day.

I was so intrigued by this unbelievably powerful statement that I looked up the source--well, after all, I am a librarian.

MLK spoke these words in a sermon delivered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on March 31, 1968, less than a month before he was assassinated. The exact quote:

"We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

In the same sermon, countering the argument that African Americans should be patient and let things happen, let justice unfold in time, he says:

"Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right."

I cannot help but think of MLK tonight, this historic night that he foresaw and foretold in one of his last speeches, a twentieth century Moses crying out, "And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."

Getting to the White House is not necessarily getting to the promised land. The promised land is equality and justice throughout the fabric of the land, in the interstices, the detailed handiwork of everyday life in America. But it certainly is a giant step.

When I think of the enormity of the stains on the soul of humankind: countless massacres, institutionalized slavery, the subjugation of the Irish and the Armenians, pogroms and the sickening horror of the Holocaust, death squads in El Salvador: these words, uttered by a prophet in the land of his oppression, fill me with hope tonight:

The arc of history bends toward justice.

The Library Irregulars

2008-10-31T19:31:00.000-07:00

When I worked at a large urban library in the 70's and 80's, we had quite a few street people. That was the time of the sociological theory that people should be let out of the institutions if they were not dangerous to themselves or others, and allowed to find a place for themselves in the world. The place they found was the public library.

Some of them were too smelly, too hostile and violent, and too psychotic to be anywhere but in a padded cell. But they were regulars--and by that I mean that they came into the library every morning at 9 and left every evening at 9--the library was their home, the place where they felt most comfortable.

One day Richard came in, cigarette in hand, and asked, as usual, for the City Directory. I handed it to him and and told him smoking was not allowed in the library, so he ground his cigarette out in the desk calendar. Another time, a patron in the Reference room asked a regular to stop humming. The response? "I'll go and get my AK 47 and we'll see if I can hum or not." Since most library users weren't aware of the crazy element unless they were regulars themselves, the first patron didn't know enough to laugh it off. So a fist fight broke out, broken up by my cohort Peter, librarian and peace officer. AK 47 strode out yelling that he'd be back with his rifle. I informed Peter that I'd be hiding under the desk until further notice.

I have to admit, though, that for the most part we all had great affection for our regulars. They made us laugh, and that was welcome when one had spent two hours poring through the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations, for the uninitiated).

There was Head Transplant Man, who informed Anne that he desperately needed one, and wanted to know where he could get the procedure done. Although Mary and I begged her to usher him into our "clinic" in the back stacks, Anne simply humored him, and settled him down with some government documents, his favorites. There was the little guy who looked like Squiggy, who always asked for "the book with the plutonium cover" (The Congressional Directory). And one of our favorites, Jane, who drew a mountain range near the North Pole in the National Geographic Atlas. When we got a new edition, we kept the old one just for her, so she could continue to draw the world the way she saw it.

When I left that library for a smaller one, I discovered that it wasn't just urban libraries that drew the, shall we say, odd. Imagine my surprise when I walked through Information Services one day and found my old friend, Toenail Clipping Man...yes...clipping his toenails. Shoes and socks off, leg extended over the top of the library table, clipper making that loud, unmistakable clicking sound. I told him to stop that immediately and he, of course, accused me of following him from library to library to interfere with his grooming routine.

The library I work for now is smaller still--it fits the category of medium sized--but it's in a mixed suburban/urban community and, as Sue, Mistress of the Macabre and my Administrative Assistant, likes to say, "It's on the bus line." Though we have fewer of them, the eccentric and perverse and odiferous are well represented at our library.

Public libraries excel at providing a non-threatening atmosphere and, public servant and bleeding heart that I am, I'm rather pleased that the most alienated and lost among us find refuge there.

Emily Latella Explains Wealth Redistribution

2008-10-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

As Emily Latella might say, "What's all this I hear about health redistribution?"

"Uh, excuse me. Emily?"

"Why should those of us who are in good health give some of our health away to people who don't have much? What if we get sick? Then what?"

"Miss Latella, that's...uh..."

"Sounds like a Communist plot to me! And another thing..."

"Emily, that's wealth-"

"What's that? Speak up!"

"That's WEALTH redistribution. Wealth. Redistribution."

"Oh. That's very different." Sweet little smile. "Never mind."

People seem to be that confused about what it was Obama actually said. He didn't say wealth redistribution. That was just something the Republican desperados seized upon when they heard him say, "Spread the wealth around."

I'm not surprised that they would try this tactic. What surprises me--and I suppose it shouldn't, given that the majority of voters reelected Bush in 2004, knowing what they knew--is the number of people who accept this interpretation, seeming to need him to have meant that he will take their hard-earned money and give it to the great unwashed.

Let's review, shall we? Wealth distribution, or redistribution, has been around since the dawn of time, to coin a phrase; monarchs used it liberally to keep their royal coffers filled for their wars and other adventures in power-gathering. Serfs and peasants were taxed, as were the aristocracy, though paying them off with part of the proceeds was part of the game, to keep them loyal. Henry VIII plundered church property and redistributed it to his loyalists, thus helping to keep the Tudors on the throne.

Robin Hood, whether real or mythic, was a creative reaction on the part of the powerless to this injustice--why shouldn't some outlaw redistribute the wealth of the rich to the most needy?

But redistribution of wealth has, since the late nineteenth century, been associated almost exclusively with socialism and communism. It's really just another riff on the old monarchical theme, in that the state seizes all production and goods--and the wealth thus obtained--pays the workers, and keeps the rest for the "common good." Its opposite is capitalism, wherein people are allowed to keep the profits from their labor, at whatever the market is willing to pay for it.

Taxes come into play in both systems. Taxes are the "wealth" everybody's so concerned about, although one can't help thinking that some people believe that Obama has a plan to plunder their personal savings. The whole point of taxes is to pay for the nation's foreign and domestic programs. There are two real questions: what is a fair method of taxation, and how should the taxes collected be spent? Should those who make (earn/inherit/invest) more, pay more? Or should we assume that if they get to keep more of their money, they will reinvest it in businesses and enterprises that create jobs and keep those in the middle- and lower-income brackets also earning? Or should there be a flat rate for everybody, regardless of income?

I have my opinions about all of these possibilities, which I'll go into at another time. When Obama threw off his line about "spreading the wealth" during his conversation with Joe the Plumber, he was castigating the Bush policy of giving tax breaks to the very rich--who, as a group, did not live up to their end of the bargain--and touting his own plans to give tax breaks to the middle class.

If people would apply their critical thinking skills in analyzing recent events, they would realize that the bailout of the banks and other financial institutions is really a buyout. Admittedly, it seems to have been the only way to avoid a complete meltdown, but what is more communistic than a state takeover of any industry? And this was perpetrated by the Republican Party, that bastion of defense against communism, necessitated by their eight-year strategy: lower taxes for those who would ordinarily pay the most, and spending taxes collected from the rest of us on the war and all its accoutrements, like lucrative government contracts for private companies with ties to administration insiders.

I'd rather my taxes not go there; I'd rather my "wealth" be redistributed to the returned veterans, and children at risk, and libraries, and a sane health insurance policy.

Wait a minute, maybe Emily Latella got it at least half right after all: not health redistribution, but health care redistribution...

Never mind.

Enough

2008-10-22T16:35:00.000-07:00

I plan to vote for Obama in November. It comes as a surprise to me that I will do so almost reluctantly, rather than whole-heartedly and with deep political conviction. I have been a Democrat all my life, and yes, a protester and picketer for social justice causes, and would ordinarily be thrilled to cast my vote for the first African American with a legitimate chance to win.

McCain has never been an option for me--not ever, but especially not now, when his desperation has caused him to throw over his "maverick" status except in name only, and has brought about his craven selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. I mean, I honestly believe that I could do a better job than she could, and believe me, I'm not qualified.

Nothing Obama has said or done in the campaign has helped to ameliorate my strong doubts about his readiness--he is untried and untested on this large a stage, and there is much to be done--and undone--to restore some semblance of the country we once revered. I still believe that Hillary was the best choice among all those who ran. If you care to see my reasons why, see my post "Why I am for Hillary" on the blog, "The Macavity Dialogues." (http://macavity dialogues.blogspot.com)

But my vote for Obama is my way of saying "Enough!" to Bush, Cheney, and the neo-cons who have spent the past eight years hacking away at the social compact comprised of all those programs that come under the umbrella of the New Deal. My vote will say "Enough!" to those who dismantled the Justice Department and turned it into a political patronage palace; "Enough!" to those who selfishly and stupidly prosecuted the first full-scale pre-emptive war in our nation's history and sent thousands to their needless deaths in a false cause; and "Enough!" to the religious bigots who have somehow convinced themselves that God is as small-minded and bitter as they are.

My vote for Obama will be one of hope--that he will demonstrate the extraordinary judgment that will be needed, and make sound choices in his appointments, and will use the office to unite rather than to divide. It's clear his election would be welcome around the world and would restore some hope that America can reclaim its status as a symbol of equality and opportunity.

I hope Obama will win, and I hope he will astonish me.

Coincidence or Divinely Inspired Theme?

2008-10-12T06:59:00.000-07:00

Some days four or five of us show up at the library wearing the same color. As we remark about this to each other, someone else will arrive, off-color so to speak, and we all round on her demanding, "Didn't you get the memo?"

The movie "Terms of Endearment" came out within a year after my sister died of breast cancer. The situations were eerily similar: young mother with three children and a clueless husband. My sister did not have a whacky, righteously angry mother who drove across the beach with an ex-astronaut, but that's why movies are never exactly like real life. My other sister, a cousin who was like a sister to us, and I all saw the movie on the same weekend, but not with each other. After I recovered from copious weeping at the end of the film, I could not wait to get home and call them to say, "Don't see this movie! It's too devastating; you shouldn't see it yet." What happened was that we all called each other to give the same warning.

A couple of years ago I re-read Josephine Tey's marvelous book, "The Daughter of Time," in which she makes the case that Richard the Third got a bad rap. She blames the general historical assumption about his bad character and physical deformity on Shakespeare, pointing out that it was, after all, in his best interest to set the Tudors in a good light and more or less cover up their own suspicious activities in the matter. So I went and re-read his "Richard the Third," wanting to examine it again with Tey's perspective fresh on my mind. I found I couldn't; his luscious language and keen dramatic instincts obliterated my intention, and he basically swept me away. Not a month later, I caught Al Pacino's documentary about preparing for the role, "Looking for Richard." And then a few weeks later I saw the movie starring Ian McKellen. Set in the 1930's, it is rife with fascist overtones. But my point is that I didn't seek these movies out--they were offered serendipitously as part of some weird literary theme just for me.

As Jerry Seinfeld might say, "What's THAT all about?"

Now my favorite blogger PJ (http://wordinthewoods.blogspot.com. Check it out.) has just posted about a family dinner conversation about T.S. Eliot. This morning I opened the next book I'm going to read, Val McDermid's "The Torment of Others," and found this quotation from "The Four Quartets" as the introduction:

"But the torment of others remains an experience
Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.
People change, and smile: but the agony abides."

Is another literary theme about to thread its way around me? I don't know, but I'm feeling an overwhelming urge to stop everything and pick "The Complete Works of T.S. Eliot" from my bookshelf and let this take me where it leads.

Sail Away Again (With Apologies to Milan Kundera)

2008-10-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is another story about taking a ferry. I will get on any boat I can at any time I can. And until I come into my rightful millions and get my yacht, The Pirate Librarian, ferries will have to do. I suppose it's good practice for my final journey across the Styx, a crossing I hope is many years in the future, as I have many ferry rides yet to take.

My sister is visiting from Buffalo, and last week we took the ferry to Block Island. When we were kids, the whole family went every year. In those days (writing that phrase makes me fell like such an old codger!) the ferry left from Providence. It would meander down Narragansett Bay, put in at Newport to take on supplies and passengers, then cross the Sound to Block Island. I've written elsewhere (an essay in the book that resulted from the NEH project "What a Difference a Bay Makes") about the mystical, musical, magical experience of sailing back to Providence in the dark and watching the lights that flickered along either side of the Bay. For many years now, the only ferries to Block Island from the RI mainland (there's one from Connecticut) have departed from Galilee. I'd much prefer the longer sail from Providence, but I'll take what I can get.

Anyway, there we were on the top deck in rough and rocky seas, getting completely soaked from wind-whipped spray and loving it. Most of the passengers were on the lower, enclosed deck, but Margaret and I were perfectly content in the open air, though we had to shout to hear each other.

On the Island, we each had a Bloody Mary (having had the best one of our lives two years ago on BI and hoping to repeat the experience)and a leisurely lunch, and then poked about in the shops. We were nostalgic, invoking well-loved family memories; we were somber, sharing our current personal woes and views on politics and world events; we were silly, catching each other's looks and breaking into laughter: We were sisters.

This is probably the source of my abiding love for sailing anywhere, but especially to Block Island. I've made this trip with my parents and sisters, with my friends, with my late husband and later with my in-laws. Even when I've gone alone, I've carried them all with me. They are not a burden; instead of weighing me down, the memories fill me with a bearable lightness of being.

Adventures in Grammar

2008-10-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

When I taught sophomore English many years ago, we had a vocabulary component. They had to learn 15 to 20 new words a week, and every Thursday I would give them a quiz on ten of these words. They had to define the word, then use it in a sentence to demonstrate they understood it in context. "Ebb," one girl wrote. "To fall off, or recede slowly." So far so good. Then she wrote this sentence: "The book ebbed off the table." A few minutes after I read this, I picked myself off the floor, having ebbed off my chair.

Thus began my long dark journey into the terrifying world of fractured syntax, words and phrases used out of context, punctuation free-for-all, disagreement between subject and verb and subject and modifier, and the ever-popular split infinitive.

I have received cover letters with resumes assuring me the writers have "alot" of experience working with the public. I have read menus offering "potatoes' au gratin" and wondered how potatoes can have au gratin and if it is a condition we should look for in potatoes. People have told me that someone gave the books to "she and I." OW. It hurts even to write that.

Most of the people who commit these grammatical faux pas (pas's?) are educated; some to Master's degree level. I'm convinced the difference between those who can write a simple English sentence and those who wander around in verbal airspace, never actually coming in for a landing, is the habit of reading regularly. Reading lifts the imagination and provokes critical thinking. But its by-products are equally important: one learns without necessarily meaning to--perhaps by osmosis--how to spell, how to punctuate, how to express oneself clearly and concisely in speech and writing.

I intend to write here occasionally about some of the common mistakes that drive me crazy and to share some simple ways to correct them. How, for example, to know whether to use "less" or "few." Oh, all right, I'll do that one now: "Less" refers to volume or general quantity; "few" to specific numbers of items. There is less water in the pitcher, so we'll be able to fill fewer glasses. People know not to say "fewer water in the pitcher," but they have no problem with "less glasses." Sports reporters are constantly reporting about "less" people in the stadium for tonight's game. Stop that! It's hurting my ears!

There is more, so much more, but I must stop now as I'm falling off, receding slowing....I'm ebbing.

Questions I Wish They'd Ask the Candidates

2008-10-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

Many citizens believe that in the past eight years government departments and policy decisions have been sullied by political interference, and hope that the next Administration will attempt to undo some of this.

Do you believe political considerations should enter into appointments to the Justice Department or any department, and if so, to what extent?

Do you believe scientists and scholars should have the freedom to explore and experiment, and to publish their studies and conclusions without reference to a political or religious agenda? If not, why not?

Do you believe that issues of security trump civil liberties? Where would you draw the line in balancing this? Are there any parts of the Patriot Act you would rescind, or do you wholeheartedly support it?

What is your definition of political leadership, and can you give an example from your own experience? What is your definition of political courage, and can you give an example from your own experience? Which of our presidents do you admire for their political leadership and their political courage?

Our war in Iraq is a reality, and most of us know that the question before us is how best to proceed from this point--whether to end it and how, or whether to define an acceptable outcome and to work to achieve it, regardless of how long it takes. Nevertheless, this question is worth asking our next leaders: What is your view on pre-emptive attacks on other countries?

What books have you read in the last year? If any, which would you recommend and why?

These are just a few of the questions I'd like to pose. And if I could moderate just one debate, I wouldn't let them get away with mindless repetitions of bromides like "reform," "change," "hope for the future."

Come on, people! This may be the most important election of our lifetime! Let's put at least a little thought into this.

A Sports Fan Thanks Her Dad Part Three The End

2008-09-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

Only a few years later a date took me to my first game at Fenway. Dad had been right, I was in awe. The lush greenness of it; the perfect diamond. It was a closed universe, a paradisiacal light-year away from the crowded city beyond the green wall. When the teams took the field and began to play, I instinctively looked not at the pitcher and batter, but at the outfield. No one had ever described for me that moment when the pitcher goes into his windup and the whole team behind him comes to high alert. "It's beautiful," I cried to my date, and thought of my Dad and got a lump in my throat. I still think that's one of the most beautiful moments in all of sports--whatever else they may have been doing, however nonchalant they had seemed, when the pitcher goes into his windup all of them, infield and outfield, lean forward in a state of deep concentration and readiness. The moment is full of high drama and caught breath. Wonderful.

So now the Patriots have won the Superbowl three times and my Dad would be ecstatic. I just know that throughout the New England region there were fans like me who thought of their dads and had a bittersweet moment of feeling an aching loss along with the jubilation.

And the Red Sox...In New England, we often got into discussions about what we'd do, how we'd feel if they ever won the World Series. Would we be able to live with it? Would it somehow lessen our obsessive love for the team? What, a group of us asked each other a few years ago, would be the first thing you'd do if the Red Sox won it all?

I didn't even have to think about my answer. And when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, I held true to it. I took a Red Sox t-shirt, hat, and large banner to St. Anne's cemetery in Cranston, RI. I put the shirt over the gravestone marking Joseph Francis F......(it's an Irish name), perched the hat on top, and wrapped the banner over the whole thing. The banner said, "They did it, Dad! Rest in peace."

Sports have been, at various times in my life, distraction, obsession, amusement. Sports have taught me about the human reaction to victory and defeat, made me think about ethical dilemmas; helped me recognize, in other areas of my life, the apparent conflicts between striving for a personal best and sacrificing personal glory for the sake of a group goal. Some people think following sports is a trivial pastime, nothing to do with real life. True sports fans--like the ones who lean out of the way to give a fielder the opportunity to catch the ball and make a play--even if he's on the opposing team--know that sports encompass all the drama and comedy, all the lessons about fair play and living with a bad call, that real life dishes up every day. I'm proud to say I'm a sports fan.

Thanks, Dad.

A Sports Fan Thanks Her Dad part two

2008-09-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

Although this sounded extremely boring to me (wasn't getting the ball and scoring the whoe point of the game? and therefore wasn't it crucial to follow the ball?) I did what he suggested for the next few minutes. And of course it turned me into a sports fan for life. Because I saw how all the action on the field was designed to further each team's goal: score or prevent the score. No matter how remote from what I had thought of as the center of the action, each man was performing a specific task that enabled (or didn't, if he didn't do his task well) the entire team to succeed.

"Hey," I said in wonder to my father. "I see what you mean!"

He beamed at me. "But what's the 'down' business all about?" I asked. "I mean, I know as long as they keep making ten yards they get to keep the ball, but what's a down?"

"A down is, is--OK, a down is a try," he said. "The team that has the ball has four downs, or 'tries,' to make ten yards. If they make four yards in their first try, then they have a second try to make the remaining six, and so on."

Oh. So simple. I even figured out the fourth down punt on my own. I was actually beginning to enjoy this. Football was strategy and logic as well as huge behemoths pounding into each other.

Warming to this new-found appreciation I was exhibiting for one of his passions, he gave me the key to all team sports.

"Don't watch just football this way," he said. "Basketball is a great game to watch when you occasionally take your eyes off the ball and see what the defenders are doing, and what the rest of the offense is doing to set up the next basket. You can tell how good a player is by watching what he's doing away from the ball."

The Red Sox were my father's favorite team. He lived and died with them each season. Watching them on TV was OK, but you couldn't really see the whole field, he told me. The beauty and symmetry of it. He couldn't take me, because a few years earlier he'd lost a leg to arteriosclerosis, and while the prosthesis was fine for getting to work and church, it really was an ungainly thing which he found difficult to maneuver in crowded situations. Someday you'll go, he told me, and you'll see what I mean.

The Red Sox game was always on the radio, the background to whatever else was going on. If he was working in the garage or mowing the lawn, the game was blasting from a transistor radio on the back steps. Driving the car: there was the game. Frequently, on hot summer nights he'd turn off the TV and he and my mother would retreat to the small sun porch with a beer and the radio. Their conversations about life, work, kids, etc., would punctuate the night air, accompanied by the whispery crowd, the announcers' murmuring, the cracking noise of a bat making contact. My Dad died very suddenly, having just gone to bed, on just such a night. He would have said it was a perfect way to go--Mom by his side, the two of them turning in after an evening of contented conversation and listening to the summer night sounds of crickets and the Red Sox game.

(To Be Continued. I will wrap this up in the next post, I promise!)

A Sports Fan Thanks Her Dad part one

2008-09-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

On a Sunday afternoon sometime in the mid-60's my father spoke the words that turned me into a sports fan. He had three daughters; I was the one in the middle. We were all sports fans in that we rooted for specific teams, even if we didn't "get" all the nuances of the games. The teams we cheered for were his teams, of course, and since we lived in Rhode Island our hearts belonged to the Providence College Friars, the Boston Celtics, the Boston Bruins.
The Patriots were our team, too, but they were part of the fledgling league and their games weren't carried on television. Some network executive somewhere decided that since New England didn't have its own NFL team, we would root for the closest alternative--the New York Giants. Consequently, every Sunday throughout the Fall New England fans who wanted to see football on TV had to watch the Giants. Many New Englanders fell for this ploy, and some even today are fanatical Giants fans. My father, though he thought New York was a wonderful city, hated all New York teams on principle. But he loved football, so each Sunday he would settle down to watch the game and root for whichever team the Giants were playing against that week.
Throughout the afternoon one or all of us would join him for at least a few minutes--boys weren't the only ones who bonded with their dads through sports. We would make comments, ask questions, or just enjoy sitting with him and thrill at the level of enthusiasm he could muster for every play.
On this particular day I was alone with him--he in his chair and me across the room on the couch. I was still in the pre-teen stage and he was still the Ultimate Source of knowledge for me, the Final Word on all subjects. I had fallen madly in love with him sometime in infancy and as far as I was concerned he was the smartest and best man in the world. There was a time in my teens when that changed--it suddenly became clear to me that everything he did or said, even his mere existence, was calculated to embarrass and mortify me and that, in fact, he knew absolutely nothing about what really mattered in life. Fortunately, I snapped out of that a few years later.
That day I complained to him that I couldn't see what was so great about football. "Everybody just plows into everybody else, which takes two seconds, and then they take five minutes to get back in line and plow into each other again. And besides," I added, "I can't follow the ball--whoever has it is in the bottom of the pile."
And then he spoke the magic words. "Don't always follow the ball," he said. "You'll never understand the game if you're just watching the ball or the action around the ball. If you really want to understand what the game is about, pick out a man, any man on either side, and watch what he does for three or four plays. Then pick out a man on the other side and watch him for three or four plays."

(To be continued. This is going to be longer than I'd thought!)

sail away

2008-09-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

Today my friend Kathy and I escaped from our normal routines and took the ferry tour of Rhode Island's lighthouses. It was so much fun to put my face in the wind and watch the light sparkle on the water. The tour was wonderful, and once again brought that frequent thought that we don't often enough take advantage of the natural beauty in our own backyard. Perhaps we should think like tourists even in familiar climes; fresh perspective can be found just in looking in a new way.
But the best part of the day was careering from deep conversation to unfettered hilarity with Kathy. Although we try to get together often, it somehow works out to be only a couple of times a year. But we make the most of it when we finally pull it off.
How grateful I am for the ocean and for friendship.

2008-09-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

These past few months have been tough for me at the library. We had a substantial reduction in our town appropriation for the first time in years, going from $814,000 in FY 2008 to $732,000 in FY 2009. We do have other sources of funding, but the town money is what keeps our doors open.

I spent much of the summer preparing various budget drafts that would reflect our new financial reality, and finally concluded that we'd have to do what I'd so wanted to avoid: letting go of staff. So over the last week I've met with people and told them the sad, sorry news.

I have fired people before--for incompetence and a number of other serious infractions. It's not easy to do, but when people's lack of performance drags down the quality of service, and the rest of the staff suffers in countless ways trying to make up for it, you do it for the sake of the library. But this is different--this is letting go of people who have performed well, given good service, and in no way deserve to lose their jobs.

People who don't use libraries have this strange stereotype in their heads about small children going to storytime and little old ladies checking out fiction. They have no idea, because they never come through the doors, what a lively hotbed of activity the library is. People of all ages come in for such a variety of information needs; our literacy program is thriving, filled with eager students hungry to learn to speak and write English so they can get ahead; we have quite a number of shut-ins from the six elderly housings in town who look forward to their visits from the library; and the computer classes are always popular.

I hear or read comments about there being no need for libraries anymore because we have the Internet. Please. There is a large portion of our population who don't own a computer and whose only access is what we provide at the library. Yes, lots of kids have computers at home to do their homework and print out amazing research projects, but our computers are in use every night by kids who, if they didn't have access to them, would be at a serious disadvantage.

So now we will reduce staff and hours and make the library less accessible for the people who need it most.

It really makes me sick at heart.

blog name: inspired by Tennyson

2008-09-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

Alfred Lord Tennyson has inspired this blog name. He wrote one of my favorite poems, "Ulysses." I won't quote the whole poem, but here are the relevant lines:

...
"The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the
deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyong the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we
are,-
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Oh, how I love the stubborn insistence that we can and will go on, we will continue to strive no matter our infirmities, until the last breath. Not because we must, or because we have no choice, but because life has been such a precious gift, and the only way to honor it is to live it fully even to its wondrous end.

This is true even for those of us who have suffered unbearable losses--we seek life, and joy, and love, knowing the terrible sorrow that awaits us when it ends, but knowing, too, that the amazing happiness and contentment is worth the risk. "'Tho much is taken, much abides..."

And, of course, the sentiment I heartily embrace: There is always a cause, there is always something else to be achieved, there is always a way, if there is a will, to make things better. Readers of this blog, I exhort you:

"Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world."

Fran