The Library

[BarbStAubrey]

The Library Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is always out. Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us. We look forward to hearing from you, about you and the books you are enjoying (or not). Let the book talk begin here!

*Suggestion Box for Future Discussions
*SeniorLearn's Archives 
 

[BarbStAubrey]

While reading it is easy to use the google map search and use that little man token to the street and voila the moving video of the street comes up so you can travel up and down all the streets and have a mini travel experience seeing the very streets and buildings and people and cars on the streets that are referred to in the books. I love checking out sites doing this - remember checking out Odessa and seeing the huge bronze vessel left on the shore from the days of Sparta and the long magnificent stairs leading from the water front - even traveled some streets mentioned in the book and found most of the estate homes appeared to be cut up into apartments from the number of vehicles in the parking areas. Fun...

[Jonathan]

'Will Schwalbe will be appearing at our Central Library tomorrow evening to talk about his book.'

Yes, JoanP, tell him about our appreciation. A great tribute to his mother and a lot of incentive to great reading. A little stack here on my desk includes The Year of Magical Thinking, Too Much Happiness, Olive Kitteridge, and The Elegance of the Hedgehog...there's one for a future discussion...by or about a concierge in Paris....

I would like to know what the selection process meant to him and his mother. There there were hints along the way, whether this book or that, or was it meant to be as surprising as life itself?

[PatH]

Jonathan, we did discuss The Elegance of the Hedgehog a few years back--good book, good discussion.  It's a very good read indeed.

[Steph]

I may try the google map search since that sounds interesting. I am hoping for a clearer day today.We have had clouds, mist and rain for several days now..This Florida girl needs sunshine or I get grumpy.

[JoanP]

Last night I was fortunate to hear Will Schwalbe, the author of The End of Your Life Book Club in person.  Those of you who read the book with us will be happy to hear that he and his family are doing well, that the library in Kabul is complete, open and flourishing. (Enthusiastic applause from the audience.) He seemed  genuinely grateful for the interest in his book, in his mother and the fact that our SeniorLearn Book Club enjoyed his book together.  He says he's on a crusade, not just a book tour now.  He wants people to read.  He used to believe that reading books was the greatest experience in the world - now he thinks books are second, sharing a book, the conversation about a book is what's important.   He urged us to ask friends and family members, "what are you reading"  because of the meaningful conversation that will follow. From his experience during  his mother's battle with cancer, he said that none of us know which book we are reading will be our last.  Be sure to share it with those we care about. It's hard to convey how moving this was, though you might imagine.

[JeanneP]

Looks like our library has nothing by Cora Black in large print.  I would have liked her writing .will see how dark the print is on her reg. books.  Some ink is so pale.

[Jonathan]

Not surprising to hear that it was fun meeting the author. It always is. Will S is certainly right about the benefits of discussing a book with others. And it must be an author's dream, to write a book that will be talked about.

Thanks for jogging my memory, PatH. I just spent an hour in the archives with the Hedgehog and I'll be going back. It's haunted by so many voices that have fallen silent. You all made such a good discussion of it.

[Frybabe]

Thanks for the report on Will Schwalbe, JoanP.

He urged us to ask friends and family members, "what are you reading"  because of the meaningful conversation that will follow.

For some time now, whenever I am waiting somewhere, I ask others I see reading what they are reading and how they like it. I've had some very nice conversations because most respond with more than just a brief answer. They are usually quite happy to discuss the book they are reading, what I'm reading, what genres we prefer, etc. One even gave me a new book she had been given because she had already read it (a Patterson, Alex Cross novel).

[Steph]

So sad, I went online last night and Tony Soprano ( Jim Gandolfini) died in Italy. and he was much much younger than I thought. The age of my older son..I loved that series and I dont like that much tv.

[BarbStAubrey]

Interesting how folks look - my youngest is 54 and in comparison I thought Jim Gadolfini was much older - did not watch the series but have seen him on other spot TV shows mostly where he was being interviewed and he appeared to be a nice and gentle man who loved his family.

[Steph]

Yes, he had recently married and had a relatively new baby.. and a teen from an earlier marriage. So sad.
I know you will all be excited to know that the two major publicity hounds,, Kim and Kanye,, named their poor daughter North.. Sigh.. what are they thinking.. I know.. names in paper, etc.

[MaryPage]

I am gratified to report about a story on the front page of our local Annapolis paper:  The Capital this Sunday morning.  We currently have 15 libraries in our county, and we are about to build yet another one right here in Annapolis.  It will cost 39 million dollars and will open for business in 2017 with all the very latest up to date technology.  And it will be quite accessible to me, albeit I have a branch library much closer to my home.  Just wanting you to know that all is not lost EVERYwhere in regard to libraries and the reading of books.

[JeanneP]

Just that they are investing to much in buildings and not enough funding left to spend on good staff. Interesting  people coming giving talks etc.  they need things going on for young and seniors.  Less are using libraries. By the time that one opens the young will be even more into technology.  Kids don't meet at the library anymore.  Only the loud ones in the computer room.  Even our new multi million one now has
Security certain time of day.we don't need fancy big buildings.  Same has happened to churches.  Bigger they build them.the less people attend. It's USA thinking I guess.

[JeanneP]

Does anyone hear from Joanne Grimes  anymore? Not here for long time. On Senior net for years.

[jane]

It's my understanding that her health is not good enough to let her participate online at this time.

jane

[JoanP]

Today we open the next  story in our Summer Short Story discussion series...  You probably know Annie Proulx for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Shipping News?  Or for her O'Henry Short Story Award-winning, Brokeback Mountain, later made into a movie?
  
Today we look at her story   The Half-Skinned Steer, which was selected for the Best Short Stories of 2008.  
We can also discuss her lengthier  "Brokeback Mountain" if you have time to read it.  Both Stories are available to read online...you can find the links to these two stories if you click this link to the discussion of   "The Half-Skinned Steer".

Please join in...the more the merrier better!

[Steph]

Actually the numbers in our local libraries belie the statements. We have huge numbers increasing every year.. We have even enticed back the teens with several clubs for them.. They are also volunteering and help us so much at the book sale by moving the heavy boxes, etc. Our seniors come to the library to get books, go to the Opera performance ( Movies) once a month, run a book club, to and of course the childrens section is so busy, they need a lot of volunteers just to keep it up.. So our problems ar commissioners, not the people who are using the library.

[BarbStAubrey]

Good show JoanP - the short stories are made so easy for us by choosing those stories on-line - they sure pack a wallop in just a couple of pages. Now we are into the modern era where it is easier to understand a character's motives. If anyone is an Annie Proulx she is the author of the current story - remember she wrote The Shipping News that we read a few years ago.  

[Steph]

Just finished reading a story about the Texas women who protested and won.. Hooray.. I am so proud of them and wish I could have been with them.

[BarbStAubrey]

The event took over our TV from the early news on the stations kept breaking in with the latest panning Wendy and the Gallery. When midnight arrived with the pandemonium we were still not sure if enough had voted to pass the bill or not and only today are we hearing tentatively that it was defeated - but the capitol is a Good Ol Boy system so we shall see what we shall see... it is not defeated yet, till all the back room hurrah settles it for now. Than we have to worry about another special session being called just for this issue.

[mabel1015j]

At least we see the citizenry in action, good for Wendy and all her supporters.

The History News Network newsletter today had a headline for an article "Yes, Paula Dean is a Racist, but It's Not Like She Repealed the Voting Rights Act." The subtle, sophisticated racists/sexists can do much more harm then some of the more obvious ones. We can't let the media direct our attention, we have to stay vigilant.

[Steph]

Yes, Perry has already announced another session.. Texas has a very very problematic governor. Almost as bad as our Florida one.
Paula Deene(not a favorite of mine) is a very typical southern woman of a type.. I suspect in every day life, she offends and has no idea she is doing it.

[rosemarykaye]

My elder daughter here in Scotland has been following the events in Texas and told me all about it last night.  She is hugely impressed with your Wendy Davis, and also told me how much heckling and sexism Wendy had to withstand even when speaking in the Senate.

Women in our parliament also have to put up with a horrendous amount of 'public school' (ie Eton) heckling from the entrenched male element, but I don't think anyone would ever succeed in overturning our abortion laws here (though who knows?  One can never say never, unfortunately)


Rosemary

[JeanneP]

I have heard lot of Southerners still use the N word. Not that long since it was common there. Not like here up North?. Now I have heard the black people use it often and they didn't seem to get mad at the person using it.She should have been more aware of where she was. I am sure it was used by her all the time around family and friends. Force of habit .

Me growing up in U.K it was the only term we  knew. Fact there was a colour of cloth.paint. Other things called  N. ...R brown.i had to be aware of using it when I came here.

[BarbStAubrey]

Some folks just want the continuation of putting down folks - she used the N word 30 years ago - think what it was like 30 years ago - back then if a women was being beaten by her husband and reported, the fine was $25. and yet, we hear nothing from this part of the public taking a man to task who 30 years ago acted towards his wife in this manner nor do we hear how other groups are put down today who are Muslims - but once the vitriol starts it does not stop till someone is ruined - this was one more way to destroy her that started when she was diagnosed with Diabetes and some wanted her to change her way of cooking in her restaurants to acknowledge her food was conducive to assuring Diabetes. Plus it has always been that Southern culture is something to make fun of and here she was making it into a success that was not in keeping with how it is "supposed" to be.

It appears the average person sees the ridiculousness of punishing now someone's behavior that took place 30 years ago and she is right - he who is without sin can caste a stone - anyhow her cookbooks are experiencing sales that are going through the roof - something like a 1000% increase - some phenomenal percent and her cruise sold out so quickly they had to schedule a second cruise.  Good for her. Too bad she is experiencing this - reminds me of Martha Stewart - the only one to receive jail time - we have many on wall street who acted much more egregiously who will never see the inside of a courtroom much less a jail.  

[Frybabe]

Well said, Barb.

[salan]

Amen, Barb.  I would hate to be held accountable today for something I did 30 years ago.  I, myself, never used the "N" word.  Although, I did pronounce "Nigra" until I was corrected in my college speech class.  I think Paula Deen is too falsely southern with her little cutesy sayings; but I think she is getting a raw deal on this.  Someone was out to get her.  She is too smart business wise to risk offending.  All the chefs who work with her on the food network seem to like her & don't believe she is a racist.
Sally

[JeanneP]

She has a book coming out this coming October.  Lots of recipes without so much butter, sugar etc.  Wonder how it will do.

Now I for one refuse the use the term. African American.  Many of a coloured race are not of African Blood. One doesn't say. British American for me, Polish American, any other country. Why African american. Crazy. If from Indian say Indian or Asian. China you are Chinese.  Negro was right at one time because they were most from Nigeria. Africa. What are they going to be calling people in years to came as the races are now so mixed.?.

[MaryPage]

The word "negro" just means "black" in both the Spanish and Portuguese languages.  Hearing these early sailing peoples refer to them as negros, it was picked up by the English speaking world.  It has nothing at all to do with Nigeria, albeit "niger" also means black.  Nigeria is a name given to an area carved out by the British for colonization, and the trade in slaves had been raging for centuries before a number of "countries" with different names and tribal groups were gathered together by their white overlords and named Nigeria.

[Steph]

I started having serious reservations about Paula, when she announced her diabetes and started hawking a drug the same day. She had the disease and knew it at least a year before the announcement and kept promoting butter, sugar etc for a whole year.. That put me off , coming from a diabetic family and knowing the struggles. Plus the sugar sweet southern talk is not a favorite of mine. My mother was a virginian, had a lovely soft accent, but never had any respect for the sugar talkers. She felt it demeaned women.

[Tomereader1]

Over and above the recipes with pounds and pounds of butter/sugar, the one singular thing that kept me from every watching Deen's show was this:   "Yawwwwll".  Now, we say y'all.
and it is Southern, but she seemingly emphasized it to the point of no return.  I got nauseous every time I heard her say that, which is to say only once or twice, or when I was surfing stations and just happened to hit upon her show, and dang if that Yawwwwll, wasn't the first word out of her mouth!  And I do think it is terrible for someone to get into trouble for something they said over 30 years ago, and too, a lot of people (celebs) have probably used that N word, or similar, but wouldn't fess up to it.   And African-Americans throw it out at their own whenever they get into a scrap or word fight, or just as a matter of course. 

Nowadays, in order to stay in the "public eye", it seems celebrities or wanna-be celebs use one of the following "stock" reasons:
(1)  I was abused as a child;
(2)  I was bullied as a child;
(3)  I was in an abusive marital relationship;
(4) I was raised in poverty;
(5)  I got in with the wrong crowd, causing me to drink and/or do drugs.

Everytime one of these 'celebs' appears on someone's talk show and begins this mantra, I change the channel.

[BarbStAubrey]

There are plenty of guys who talk with such an accent especially football and baseball players and announcers and so like her accent or not, I still think we are picking on her because it is ok to pick on women.

As for the food she serves and writes for her books - Not everyone is diabetic and not everyone will become diabetic so I can see the value of a cookbook with foods that diabetics would not be able to eat - have you ever read any of the older French cookbooks - they hardly know vegetables and again the butter and more butter and more butter along with wine and liquors.

I just think none of this was an issue when Mario Batali had to loose a couple of hundred pounds because of his aquired diabetes - nor do we fault Paul Prudhomme who if you are not from Louisiana you cannot understand the man and he too is so overweight he cooks now from a wheel chair. I just think it is duck season on Paula Dean. If we really support women then we need to look and see if guys are given the same treatment and if not - then her gender is making her fair game.

[mabel1015j]

I haven't decided how i feel about PD and her past and how she's trying to save her future.

 I frequently caution my children and students about expecting everyone to have had the same experience and knowlege that they have learned thru their lives. So, my first thought was, of course she has said the N word, she's from Georgia, so even as a child it was probably used often around her. I won't fault her fir that.

If she had stuck with that first comment we heard from the deposition "of course" (she had used the word), but then said "but i grew up to recognize that it was an offensive, hurtful word and i haven't used it in 3 dcades and have tried to be respectful to everyone in society"  etc, i think she would have been all right. But she is dramatic and always over the top so i think that makes people - as some of you have said - suspect much of what she says. She's not seemed to be truly remorseful and has talked very much about herself and how hurt she and her friends are as opposed to stating how she understands the force and the history of the word...........so I'm still neutral, altho i was encouraged by the handful of Black people around her who have been supportive


Another brave woman returns to the news......a 40's something young woman brought this article to my attention saying "i never heard of this woman".

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/28/politics/civil-rights-viola-liuzzo

I remember the controversy at the time. Some people who have to judge others made a huge pitch that Viola Liuzzo should have been home with her 5 children, somethingthat has been  said to every activist women. But it never seems to be a statement said to men!?!

 I've not been a conspiratist most of my life, but this is a story every person in the country should hear because of this sentence from the article "Racism, sexism and the FBI combined to provoke a backlash against her."  REALITY CHECK.

Jean

[BarbStAubrey]

Wow amazing and then we wonder why so many have issues with the Government - are you suggesting the FBI or maybe the IRS are behind all this vitriol against Paula Dean - could be - hadn't heard but it would not surprise me. No she is not perfect but then who is - the whole thing is a smear campaign - I never followed her or her books - I did read a bio about how she started after a brutal divorce picking herself up and making a good life for her boys. When I see Dave Letterman making her into a joke - who is he to talk after his escapades.

I can understand her not satisfying those who think she is so awful because that would be condemning yourself for any of your unenlightened behavior - carrying that kind of guilt that becomes shame is lethal - we all have things that to do over 30 years later we would do differently especially when the culture in the nation changes. I doubt seriously she was one of those 1960s rednecks or would she have walked in Selma - she would be like any southern housewife who learned to change with the times and to fault yourself for not knowing any better or for not thinking like those in other parts of the country - but no one wants to talk about how in other parts of the country they too were calling Blacks "n****." When all this came down it took a few years before folks settled on the word Black as a description. Folks want to throw rocks as if the way of life we know now was the way of life 30 years ago and anyone who lived without today's values should be ridiculed and have their business ruined.

[PatH]

I doubt any organization in particular is behind the vitriol in Dean's case; more likely it just fits with the current mood.

Jean, thanks for the Viola Liuzzo article.  When one considers the tricks the FBI pulled in this case and others, it reinforces the feeling that it's a very bad thing for the government to collect lots of unnecessary data.

[mabel1015j]

If you are responding to my post Barb........No, i wasn't suggesting that the FBI or the IRS was connected to Paula Dean's situation. Those were two separate issues that were in my head.

Yes, Pat, i go back and forth in my feelings about the "government". There are situations where i totally trust the "government" and other times when i believe we need to be very vigilent. But i guess that's a good mental attitude when living in a democracy. Didn't someone say "Trust, but verify" ?

Jean

[JeanneP]

Paula should just sit back,live on the millions she has already made. Few months will go bye. All this will be forgotten. She is just saying to much.  Not that she has committed a crime and being tried.  Martha Stewart , died down.  She is back up again.  Others are also.  Her new type book will come out end of year .people will like it and think well of her again. Or as much as anyone did . She was a novelty to some and a joke to others.  Laughed herself all the way to the bank.   Where now she is saying she was held with a gun to her head all these years ago.  She will die using the that word.along with lots of others. Force of habit.  She didn't just use it one time.  I live up North and still hear it at least once a day if not more. 

[BarbStAubrey]

I hear you Jeanne and agree to a point - the point bring with her business plummeting look at all the employees she is going to have to let go - that is what is so sad - you do not ruin a person you ruin their business and that means not enough inocme to keep faithful employees who depended on their job. That is the meanness I see in this.

[Frybabe]

It is amazing to me that the likes of Alex Baldwin and others can express derogatory remarks in public about others in the now and get away with it while Paula Deen, who I don't watch, gets the plug pulled for something said almost 30 years ago. Was the network looking for an excuse to dump her? Maybe the ratings slid bigtime after the diabetes announcement and they were looking for a way to get out of her contract.