Before Microsoft Windows, the classical example of insanity was repeating an action and expecting it to have a different result. Now, of course, a PC service tech won’t even listen until you’ve repeated it twice at least.
This has had an unfortunate effect on American politics. Now, even those few people who know a little of history are likely to ignore it. People now hold economic and political opinions as revealed dogma; only truly evil people would disagree.
The American right wing is advocating a continuation, even an expansion, of the very policies that put us in the current predicament. The policies that produced the 1930’s have also produced the 2010’s. The American left is divided into a hand-wringing moderate wing, and a socialist nut-squad who cannot see that their ideas as well have been tried and failed.
In party terms, the Republicans have a moderate, center-oriented wing but it is being bludgeoned into submissive irrelevance by the true-believing right. The Democrats have a moderate, center-oriented wing but it keeps trying for bi-partisan solutions, apparently unaware that “bi-partisan” requires two sides trying to come together. At least the Democrats are not yet controlled by their maniacs, but they have accomplished so little.
It seems that currently the right-wing crazies outnumber the left-wing nutcases by a fairly large amount. So the right may wind up in control of things when our balance is completely gone. And that, as Arianna Huffington is saying, will result in the USA becoming just another third-world country – the richest few will control everything, and we will no longer have a large middle class.
All summer without a post and I come up with another h-in-h rant. I’m sorry. I’ll try to have something more cheerful for the next post. I’d better; I have another gripe almost ready to go.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Shortly after the last post, Betty and I flew out to Oakland, CA to visit Tom and Kelly for a week. That was an incredibly good time. Best, of course, was time with my first son, and his marvelously witty wife. We would have liked more time with Kelly, but what we had was high quality. It's kind of unfortunate that she has a day job again, but that's show biz. Pay yer dues, kid. She is making progress. Tom says that she often makes more from her performing than it costs, and people are beginning to call her with offers. Good luck, babe!
We, of course, did most of the usual Bay Area tourist things: cable cars, Fisherman's Wharf, Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach. Also Berkeley's Municipal Pier and Sausalito. But easily the best tourist thing was Muir Woods. Going there from Oakland, we didn't take the famous Golden Gate bridge; that would involve lots of city driving through San Francisco. Coming from the I-580 bridge and going cross-country to Muir Woods reminded us a lot of West Virginia - tight curves, steep hills and no guard rails. Who needs guard rails? Most places the trees won't let you roll all the way down those 300 or 400 foot drops. And the trees are immense, and the whole place is beautiful. We walked around the path in awe; the feeling was the same as hiking in WV woods, or the Smokies. Sure, the Grand Canyon is awe-inspiring in its way, but we grew up in tree country and have Druids in our remote ancestry.
Tuesday Betty wasn't feeling good, so Tom and I went to Alcatraz and the City Lights bookstore. It was so good - SO GOOD! - to have that much time with Tom. He really is fun to be with, and I already miss him as much as I did before we went. But City Lights was good. I found a postcard with a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem, and thought it would appeal to Jim Costanzo. I was right; after we got back he called and told me it was possibly the best thing he had ever had from family. Made me very happy!
The big surprise, though, was that I really liked San Fran and the whole Bay area. I had such a stereotype of California as the land of the flake and the home of the nutcase. But I found friendly, mostly normal people. Not only that, they walk on sidewalks and use public transportation as a normal way to go places. Add in the odd, non-chain shops and entertainments and you have most of what I like about New York City with little of what I don't like - dirt and fear. Sure, Ohio is still home, but if you see someone on a bus in Dayton it's an even money bet that they either can't afford a car or their driver's license is suspended or revoked.
So, even if Tom and Kelly end up elsewhere, I would like to go back sometime. (Of course if they stay around there I'm for sure going to go back.) I'm not quite ready to join Tony Bennett yet, but I'm closer than I ever expected to be.
We, of course, did most of the usual Bay Area tourist things: cable cars, Fisherman's Wharf, Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach. Also Berkeley's Municipal Pier and Sausalito. But easily the best tourist thing was Muir Woods. Going there from Oakland, we didn't take the famous Golden Gate bridge; that would involve lots of city driving through San Francisco. Coming from the I-580 bridge and going cross-country to Muir Woods reminded us a lot of West Virginia - tight curves, steep hills and no guard rails. Who needs guard rails? Most places the trees won't let you roll all the way down those 300 or 400 foot drops. And the trees are immense, and the whole place is beautiful. We walked around the path in awe; the feeling was the same as hiking in WV woods, or the Smokies. Sure, the Grand Canyon is awe-inspiring in its way, but we grew up in tree country and have Druids in our remote ancestry.
Tuesday Betty wasn't feeling good, so Tom and I went to Alcatraz and the City Lights bookstore. It was so good - SO GOOD! - to have that much time with Tom. He really is fun to be with, and I already miss him as much as I did before we went. But City Lights was good. I found a postcard with a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem, and thought it would appeal to Jim Costanzo. I was right; after we got back he called and told me it was possibly the best thing he had ever had from family. Made me very happy!
The big surprise, though, was that I really liked San Fran and the whole Bay area. I had such a stereotype of California as the land of the flake and the home of the nutcase. But I found friendly, mostly normal people. Not only that, they walk on sidewalks and use public transportation as a normal way to go places. Add in the odd, non-chain shops and entertainments and you have most of what I like about New York City with little of what I don't like - dirt and fear. Sure, Ohio is still home, but if you see someone on a bus in Dayton it's an even money bet that they either can't afford a car or their driver's license is suspended or revoked.
So, even if Tom and Kelly end up elsewhere, I would like to go back sometime. (Of course if they stay around there I'm for sure going to go back.) I'm not quite ready to join Tony Bennett yet, but I'm closer than I ever expected to be.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Now Fearful
{continued from Not Hopeful.}
What has inspired my fear is the “Tea Party” movement. It looks like simply unfocused anger, apparently fed by two deep-seated fears. One is the well-founded fear that America is no longer supreme in the world. The movement seems to include those who fear that the USA is no longer able to do anything we want, that no one can compel us or forbid us, and those who fear that the USA is no longer a moral leader. Few will admit these fears openly; thus I have to insert weasel words – “apparently”, “seems”. I could be wrong. Indeed, I profoundly hope that I am wrong. Because this kind of nationalism is a terrible danger, as World Wars I and II surely demonstrate. This has a frightening resemblance to the kind of inferiority complex in Germany that contributed so heavily to those horrible wars. The loss of moral leadership is harder to admit, at least in so many words. We’re losing the sense, never fully justified, that America was admired, not just envied.
The other basic fear is more personal: a fear that our lives are not under our own control. Certainly government has the power to exercise more control than anyone could tolerate, even if it is not currently doing so. But this fear also has an economic and personal component. It is not just fear of excessive taxation, or excessive economic regulation, though that is the public face of it. It is also the fear that maybe my life is not at all under my control. A certain type of rugged individualism is a major factor in the American psyche. If I try hard, I will succeed, and if I don’t succeed I didn’t really try. This has, for many people, the force of a religious doctrine. Unfortunately it is really not correct. If I don’t try, I won’t succeed; that part is clearly true. But human history has uncounted examples of people who tried as hard as anyone, and completely failed. Logically, effort is a “necessary but not sufficient condition” of success.
The conservative emphasis on personal responsibility is not, in itself, a bad thing. Indeed no system lasts long when people need not take responsibility for themselves. But the real problem is opportunity. Can people effectively take responsibility for their lives? The rugged individualist ethic goes deep in our national culture and psyche. I feel that this is because until the 20th century, it was possible to live your own life completely. Just head west till you found a place you liked, and plant a crop or hunt. It might not be easy, or comfortable, but for all but disabled men it was doable. This hasn’t been possible for a long time now, but the attitude persists among us. We are all limited in our choices.
Growing one’s own food is a live option for very few of us. For better or worse, the vast majority of Americans live in a money-only economy. If we want food, clothing or shelter, we buy them. And the thing about money is, you don’t have it until someone gives you some. What we call “earning” money is really trading something we have that is not money (merchandise or labor, most commonly) for money. This means that to get, say, food, we need to find someone with money. We must convince them that we can give them something they want and to give us money in exchange for it. Then we find someone with food, and convince them to take our money in exchange for their food. (I’m making this sound like a more complex version of bartering. It is, but it’s a vast improvement; that’s a subject for another time.)
This gives us two problems to solve: we must sell something, and we must buy something. But the system does not guarantee that either will be possible. We may not be able to find anyone who will pay for anything we have, and we may not be able to find anyone who can sell what we want to buy. Indeed, there may not be anyone who will pay for what we have, or sell us what we need. The second case is what happens in a famine. In this country that is hardly a serious risk any more. But the first happens all the time, for a lot of people and a lot of reasons. Here is my favorite example: In the nineteenth century, telegraph operators were respected skilled workers. It took time and practice to learn the Morse code and acquire speed in transmitting and receiving messages. Such men were in demand; they received a good amount of money for their work. But then came the telephone. The demand for telegraph operators dwindled and died. Men who had been respected middle-class wage-earners had to acquire a different skill or join the underclass. The examples in my own life are Fortran (me) and Cobol programmers. And the older one is, the harder it is to acquire a new marketable skill.
So here we have modern American conservatives. They are committed to the belief that good people always succeed in America, and they know that they are good people. If someone fails, they must try again until they succeed. But by now, a majority of Americans has either lost a job, through no fault of their own, or has a close friend who has lost theirs. This is particularly true among the well-paid but low-skill jobs, which are now getting very scarce. (The post from May 2009 has more detail on this.) And what should be happening, isn’t happening. They cannot find anyone who wants what they have, no matter how valuable the searcher knows it is and no matter how hard they work at looking. That’s not supposed to happen to good people. And it’s hardest for the middle-aged. If they acquire a new skill, they are competing with fresh young workers for entry-level jobs. Employers who should look at their proven record of good work instead look at the lower salaries that young, childless workers are happy with.
This has the effect of a failure of one’s religion. The bedrock I’ve been standing on isn’t rock after all; my life is not what I thought it was. I thought that if I worked hard I was safe, but I worked hard and I’ve been tossed out in the street. The lifeline came loose in my hand. Probably the most common reaction to this experience is the conviction that somebody screwed up the system, and they must be stopped. It must be somebody’s fault, and it sure ain’t mine! And the search for the scapegoat begins.
{a third installment will probably follow}
What has inspired my fear is the “Tea Party” movement. It looks like simply unfocused anger, apparently fed by two deep-seated fears. One is the well-founded fear that America is no longer supreme in the world. The movement seems to include those who fear that the USA is no longer able to do anything we want, that no one can compel us or forbid us, and those who fear that the USA is no longer a moral leader. Few will admit these fears openly; thus I have to insert weasel words – “apparently”, “seems”. I could be wrong. Indeed, I profoundly hope that I am wrong. Because this kind of nationalism is a terrible danger, as World Wars I and II surely demonstrate. This has a frightening resemblance to the kind of inferiority complex in Germany that contributed so heavily to those horrible wars. The loss of moral leadership is harder to admit, at least in so many words. We’re losing the sense, never fully justified, that America was admired, not just envied.
The other basic fear is more personal: a fear that our lives are not under our own control. Certainly government has the power to exercise more control than anyone could tolerate, even if it is not currently doing so. But this fear also has an economic and personal component. It is not just fear of excessive taxation, or excessive economic regulation, though that is the public face of it. It is also the fear that maybe my life is not at all under my control. A certain type of rugged individualism is a major factor in the American psyche. If I try hard, I will succeed, and if I don’t succeed I didn’t really try. This has, for many people, the force of a religious doctrine. Unfortunately it is really not correct. If I don’t try, I won’t succeed; that part is clearly true. But human history has uncounted examples of people who tried as hard as anyone, and completely failed. Logically, effort is a “necessary but not sufficient condition” of success.
The conservative emphasis on personal responsibility is not, in itself, a bad thing. Indeed no system lasts long when people need not take responsibility for themselves. But the real problem is opportunity. Can people effectively take responsibility for their lives? The rugged individualist ethic goes deep in our national culture and psyche. I feel that this is because until the 20th century, it was possible to live your own life completely. Just head west till you found a place you liked, and plant a crop or hunt. It might not be easy, or comfortable, but for all but disabled men it was doable. This hasn’t been possible for a long time now, but the attitude persists among us. We are all limited in our choices.
Growing one’s own food is a live option for very few of us. For better or worse, the vast majority of Americans live in a money-only economy. If we want food, clothing or shelter, we buy them. And the thing about money is, you don’t have it until someone gives you some. What we call “earning” money is really trading something we have that is not money (merchandise or labor, most commonly) for money. This means that to get, say, food, we need to find someone with money. We must convince them that we can give them something they want and to give us money in exchange for it. Then we find someone with food, and convince them to take our money in exchange for their food. (I’m making this sound like a more complex version of bartering. It is, but it’s a vast improvement; that’s a subject for another time.)
This gives us two problems to solve: we must sell something, and we must buy something. But the system does not guarantee that either will be possible. We may not be able to find anyone who will pay for anything we have, and we may not be able to find anyone who can sell what we want to buy. Indeed, there may not be anyone who will pay for what we have, or sell us what we need. The second case is what happens in a famine. In this country that is hardly a serious risk any more. But the first happens all the time, for a lot of people and a lot of reasons. Here is my favorite example: In the nineteenth century, telegraph operators were respected skilled workers. It took time and practice to learn the Morse code and acquire speed in transmitting and receiving messages. Such men were in demand; they received a good amount of money for their work. But then came the telephone. The demand for telegraph operators dwindled and died. Men who had been respected middle-class wage-earners had to acquire a different skill or join the underclass. The examples in my own life are Fortran (me) and Cobol programmers. And the older one is, the harder it is to acquire a new marketable skill.
So here we have modern American conservatives. They are committed to the belief that good people always succeed in America, and they know that they are good people. If someone fails, they must try again until they succeed. But by now, a majority of Americans has either lost a job, through no fault of their own, or has a close friend who has lost theirs. This is particularly true among the well-paid but low-skill jobs, which are now getting very scarce. (The post from May 2009 has more detail on this.) And what should be happening, isn’t happening. They cannot find anyone who wants what they have, no matter how valuable the searcher knows it is and no matter how hard they work at looking. That’s not supposed to happen to good people. And it’s hardest for the middle-aged. If they acquire a new skill, they are competing with fresh young workers for entry-level jobs. Employers who should look at their proven record of good work instead look at the lower salaries that young, childless workers are happy with.
This has the effect of a failure of one’s religion. The bedrock I’ve been standing on isn’t rock after all; my life is not what I thought it was. I thought that if I worked hard I was safe, but I worked hard and I’ve been tossed out in the street. The lifeline came loose in my hand. Probably the most common reaction to this experience is the conviction that somebody screwed up the system, and they must be stopped. It must be somebody’s fault, and it sure ain’t mine! And the search for the scapegoat begins.
{a third installment will probably follow}
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
No Longer Hopeful
I have gone beyond unhopeful to fearful about my country. It has been bad enough that so many people, left and right, ignore everything that they do not already agree with. That truth is neither sought nor valued. That the right says “everything American is the best”, and the left says “anything American is defective at best.” Both of them disregard any contrary evidence. And most of all, that the center, the moderates, are shrinking in number and almost totally without influence. I am a moderate, a centrist, myself, so both sides ridicule me as belonging to the other side, no matter how loudly I say that I am center. Though if anything, the intransigence of the right is pushing me slightly left of center.
I will probably be pushed back to the center soon; intransigence inspires intransigence. I began losing hope when I saw the beginning of an unstable oscillation between left and right. When George Bush, without even gaining a popular majority, rammed through a legislative program which was supported only by the far right, just because he could, I first got worried. In former times a president in such a position was politically very cautious; the “thin mandate blues” prevented extremist actions. But W went on as though every American loved his policies. The federal budget was nearly under control, which I thought could only be explained by divine intervention. Well, he sure took care of that.
That’s when I began to worry that “the center cannot hold” was not poetry any more. I once read an article which explained the pronounced tendency towards political instability of Hispanic countries. This author noted that the Spanish language has no equivalent to the English word “compromise”. The nearest equivalent has a strong connotation of “sell out”. Thus everyone’s position must be all or nothing, and in practice it boiled down, more often than not, into government by the strongest only because he is the strongest. In this country we once had the “spoils system” for filling government jobs, after someone, maybe Andrew Jackson, pronounced “To the victor belong the spoils.” Eventually the country got tired of the chaos of a completely new government after each election, especially when a president (Garfield) was murdered by a man who didn’t get a government job. But with the calls to repeal the new health care reform, we are sliding toward a system of a whole new set of laws after each election.
This way lies madness.
{more along this line will follow.}
I will probably be pushed back to the center soon; intransigence inspires intransigence. I began losing hope when I saw the beginning of an unstable oscillation between left and right. When George Bush, without even gaining a popular majority, rammed through a legislative program which was supported only by the far right, just because he could, I first got worried. In former times a president in such a position was politically very cautious; the “thin mandate blues” prevented extremist actions. But W went on as though every American loved his policies. The federal budget was nearly under control, which I thought could only be explained by divine intervention. Well, he sure took care of that.
That’s when I began to worry that “the center cannot hold” was not poetry any more. I once read an article which explained the pronounced tendency towards political instability of Hispanic countries. This author noted that the Spanish language has no equivalent to the English word “compromise”. The nearest equivalent has a strong connotation of “sell out”. Thus everyone’s position must be all or nothing, and in practice it boiled down, more often than not, into government by the strongest only because he is the strongest. In this country we once had the “spoils system” for filling government jobs, after someone, maybe Andrew Jackson, pronounced “To the victor belong the spoils.” Eventually the country got tired of the chaos of a completely new government after each election, especially when a president (Garfield) was murdered by a man who didn’t get a government job. But with the calls to repeal the new health care reform, we are sliding toward a system of a whole new set of laws after each election.
This way lies madness.
{more along this line will follow.}
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Memoirs, so far
Well, the memoirs are started. I have the title, front matter, an intro and 3 (almost) pages of early memories. At this rate, it'll be quite a while, but life may change. The last six months, it seems like every time I think "Ah, now I've got the time" or "Ah, now I've got the cash" I don't. The title is Not Always Well Spent. I don't remember where I first heard that phrase, but for quite a while now it has struck me as a good summary.
The subtitle has been trickier; I've thought of several and waffled between them. No way to tell yet how it may come out. Currently it's "A memoir of a life when America was at its peak." I'm not sure; it may be a little too political to describe me, or at least this memoir as I currently conceive it. I do feel that it describes the times themselves quite well, though. Tonight I'm leaning towards "A life at the front of the Baby Boom", or maybe "A Boomer's life." We'll see. I do like subtitles on non-fiction works, so this work will have one.
The subtitle has been trickier; I've thought of several and waffled between them. No way to tell yet how it may come out. Currently it's "A memoir of a life when America was at its peak." I'm not sure; it may be a little too political to describe me, or at least this memoir as I currently conceive it. I do feel that it describes the times themselves quite well, though. Tonight I'm leaning towards "A life at the front of the Baby Boom", or maybe "A Boomer's life." We'll see. I do like subtitles on non-fiction works, so this work will have one.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
And the New Age begins
Okay, "New Age" is overstating it. It's a new phase in a continuing life. I've taken to calling myself "semi-retired." I'm no longer looking for a full-time job. In fact I don't even want one any more. I'm hoping for a 2/5 part-time reference job to come open at Dayton Metro Library, and with that I would consider myself set indefinitely. Of course only God knows how long I will be able to work, and He is keeping that datum confidential. That's cool. But my hope is to be actively working until age 70, give or take a couple of years. If I can do that, working 20-30 hours a week, I'll have time for plenty of fun stuff.
My idea of fun stuff has changed lately, though. 8 or 10 years ago, I thought in terms of progamming - making games, web sites, that sort of thing. But after the layoff, when I took some web programming courses at Sinclair, I realized that I don't have enough of what Betty calls "design sense." Then I went to Library school and completed my Master of Library and Information Science degree. (Man, I LOVE writing the whole thing out like that!) I am now a Master! But in the course of that coursework, I found out something new - I can write!
This is not exactly new. In my undergraduate work, especially at Miami U. when I was doing mostly Common Curriculum courses, I wrote some stuff I was rather proud of. I sometimes wonder if any of it survives in our attic. If not it may be just as well; memory tends to put a brighter polish on things than they had on their own. But I didn't love the process of writing. At least part of this was deadline pressure. I had to turn in some stuff that I knew would be better with a few more days to work on it. Later at Wright State, when I had free electives to choose, I went for either science or philosophy, not English.
Looking back, I wonder how much difference it would have made if I had had modern technology. I particularly remember a paper at Miami on Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale. As I was near the end, I realized that Chaucer had slipped in an excuse for the Pardoner's bad behavior, and used that for a conclusion. Going back to moderate my castigation of his hypocrisy would have meant retyping the whole essay. So I got (justifiably) taken off for changing directions so abruptly at the end. With a word processor, I might have had the time to correct things. But that was the days of typewriters - once you type it, buddy, there it sits. Correcting a sentence meant correcting a page. And adding a sentence meant retyping everything that came after it.
So when I finally started on a for-real master's degree, I was worried. Sure, I could write better than almost any computer geek I knew, but that's a really low standard. A large majority of them may be smart, even ingenious, where logic and technology are concerned, but very few can put together a coherent sentence. Going in to Library school, knowing that most of the students were liberal arts majors, especially English and History, I was afraid of being in over my head. When Prof. Boon told me that she liked my writing, I was stunned.
So three things have combined to change my attitude toward writing. Having graduated, I can write without deadlines. Technology has made editing and polishing much easier and faster. And most important, someone who knows writing thinks that I can write well! So I'm planning to spend a fair amount of my new free time in writing. I just started my memoirs; that always seems like an easy way in to writing. Write what you know, they all say. More to come, God willing.
My idea of fun stuff has changed lately, though. 8 or 10 years ago, I thought in terms of progamming - making games, web sites, that sort of thing. But after the layoff, when I took some web programming courses at Sinclair, I realized that I don't have enough of what Betty calls "design sense." Then I went to Library school and completed my Master of Library and Information Science degree. (Man, I LOVE writing the whole thing out like that!) I am now a Master! But in the course of that coursework, I found out something new - I can write!
This is not exactly new. In my undergraduate work, especially at Miami U. when I was doing mostly Common Curriculum courses, I wrote some stuff I was rather proud of. I sometimes wonder if any of it survives in our attic. If not it may be just as well; memory tends to put a brighter polish on things than they had on their own. But I didn't love the process of writing. At least part of this was deadline pressure. I had to turn in some stuff that I knew would be better with a few more days to work on it. Later at Wright State, when I had free electives to choose, I went for either science or philosophy, not English.
Looking back, I wonder how much difference it would have made if I had had modern technology. I particularly remember a paper at Miami on Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale. As I was near the end, I realized that Chaucer had slipped in an excuse for the Pardoner's bad behavior, and used that for a conclusion. Going back to moderate my castigation of his hypocrisy would have meant retyping the whole essay. So I got (justifiably) taken off for changing directions so abruptly at the end. With a word processor, I might have had the time to correct things. But that was the days of typewriters - once you type it, buddy, there it sits. Correcting a sentence meant correcting a page. And adding a sentence meant retyping everything that came after it.
So when I finally started on a for-real master's degree, I was worried. Sure, I could write better than almost any computer geek I knew, but that's a really low standard. A large majority of them may be smart, even ingenious, where logic and technology are concerned, but very few can put together a coherent sentence. Going in to Library school, knowing that most of the students were liberal arts majors, especially English and History, I was afraid of being in over my head. When Prof. Boon told me that she liked my writing, I was stunned.
So three things have combined to change my attitude toward writing. Having graduated, I can write without deadlines. Technology has made editing and polishing much easier and faster. And most important, someone who knows writing thinks that I can write well! So I'm planning to spend a fair amount of my new free time in writing. I just started my memoirs; that always seems like an easy way in to writing. Write what you know, they all say. More to come, God willing.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Almost There!
Ran back over the blog tonight. Back to the first post, about how this was just a Library School class assignment at first. There's some stuff in here I'm pretty proud of; I can think and I can write it down after I think it! I never really expected that. I've been thinking that I might be a writer sometime soon. Especially now that I'm within a month of my MLIS, and I'm a Substitute Reference Librarian at Dayton Metro Library, with my first shift next Tuesday. With Social Security, my Shim Enterprises part-time job at 10 hours a week, and a few more hours at DML, I'll have an adequate income and enough time to hone my writing.
But what will I write? I've got lots of ideas. One new one is a biography of Electra Collens Doren. I was at the E. C. Doren branch library most of today. This branch is the only one of DML's 20 branches named for a person, rather than the neighborhood. I have learned a bit of her life, and she was a true library hero, easily the greatest such in Dayton. I would like her life to be better known outside of Dayton (inside of it too, for that matter.) This might require more education, but I might be able to get that from U. D. Maybe when I audit some German language courses I will also audit a biography-writing course. If UD has one. I'll have to find an English professor sometime.
But what will I write? I've got lots of ideas. One new one is a biography of Electra Collens Doren. I was at the E. C. Doren branch library most of today. This branch is the only one of DML's 20 branches named for a person, rather than the neighborhood. I have learned a bit of her life, and she was a true library hero, easily the greatest such in Dayton. I would like her life to be better known outside of Dayton (inside of it too, for that matter.) This might require more education, but I might be able to get that from U. D. Maybe when I audit some German language courses I will also audit a biography-writing course. If UD has one. I'll have to find an English professor sometime.
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