Author Topic: The Library (Read 2084480 times)

bellamarie · « **Reply #16200 on:** November 17, 2015, 11:45:20 AM »

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

I saw a post on Facebook today that gave me chills, it said, "While we are teaching our children to learn tolerance, they are teaching their children to kill us."

Frybabe, that would have been very scarey to be there hearing that.

I was watching a newscast about these kids protesting in groups at their colleges and when asked exactly what were they protesting for and how can they achieve their goals, they could not answer. I felt a bit sorry for them, because they are allowing themselves to get caught up in a hostile situation wanting to be a part of a group, yet they have no knowledge or idea what they are even protesting for. Our discussion book this month is, "The Cellist of Sarajevo" and it brought about a discussion of how we allow others to influence us on who we should hate. I thought about these college kids, how they are allowing themselves to be influenced by fellow students, political candidates, college professors, and the media. When you ask them point blank what they believe in they actually stammer and stutter and often realize they are not even sure and are often confused and find they contradict their very own protests. We have got to do so much better where education is involved. A prestigious college name is truly no better or worse than any other college, it only sounds better and may get your resume looked at if it has a prestigious college name on it. Parents are spending as much as $65,000 a year and these students can't even recognize or name a country or leader. So shocking!

Steph · « **Reply #16201 on:** November 18, 2015, 08:23:58 AM »

Actually colleges are really a way to grow up for many.I know back in the far far memories is the fact that when I was in college.. Panty raids were the big thing and drove the administration nuts.. The students loved them.. We once had a fire drill and when we went to the exit doors on my floori, there was a honking huge goose in the area.. Of course being girls and also excited, we scream and milled aroundand generally made nuisances of ourselves. Someway later, protests started to get serious. I do remember theViet Nam ones although I was married and had small children by then.

jane · « **Reply #16202 on:** November 18, 2015, 09:05:52 AM »

Yes, the silly pranks ended and things turned deadly with the VietNam protests in the late 60s and early 70s.
Lots of violence with those protests....the Univ. of WI bombing where a researcher was killed...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Hall_bombing#Army_Mathematics_Research_Center

I was a grad student at the Univ. of Ill - Champaign in 1968-69 and people (some thought tied to the groups at Berkeley) tried to destroy the main card catalog...emptying trays of cards and setting them on fire in numerous waste baskets. Later bomb threats had grad students at the Univ. of Iowa doing hourly building checks, and I had to close the Educ-Psych Lib where I was a reference librarian on orders from the Dean because of bomb threats. It was not a pleasant time to be on a large university campus.

Then there was the Patty Hearst and Symbionese Liberation Army killings, etc.

Those who are nostalgic about the "good old days" of the late 60s-into 70s were apparently not actually there. It was NOT all "free love" and beads.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #16203 on:** November 18, 2015, 09:45:00 AM »

I agree Jane - I do get fed up when people say it was all better when they were young; I remember my aunts banging on about that when I was a teenager - it was depressing then and it is now, especially for young people today who have their lives ahead of them, whatever they may bring.

Things change, some for the worse but some also for the better. The position of women, gays, people of colour, etc in the UK has improved immeasurably since the 1960s. I have just been having coffee with a friend of similar age, and we were recalling how horrendous it was for any girl at our schools who ended up pregnant. It was considered shameful for the whole family (but not for the boy's, naturally) and the girls were still being sent away to 'mother and baby homes' from which their children were forcibly adopted, or put into children's homes and often sent to Australia and other parts of the Commonwealth, where many suffered terrible abuse.

And I do think students should have some sort of right to protest (though obviously non-violently) - they may not know what they're talking about, but I'm not sure anyone does, and they have to become boring bankers, lawyers, etc soon enough.

Rosemary

bellamarie · « **Reply #16204 on:** November 18, 2015, 11:06:15 AM »

I don't think students should protest when they have no idea what they are protesting for. Going along with a group just because, seems a bit insignificant to me. Freedom of speech and right to assemble is a good thing, but when it becomes violent it then infringes on others rights as well. I never was one to just go along with the crowd.

Jane, I can't imagine how unsafe the students felt being in the midst of those times on campus.

Rosemary I agree, it is shameful how girls were treated back years ago if they got pregnant. I have a best friend who was sent away and forced to give up her baby girl, and I have a sister in law who also was sent away and was forced to give up her baby boy (the only pregnancy she ever had). My daughter in law got pregnant at the age of 17 with my son's child while the two of them were still in high school. She was asked to leave the school, he was allowed to stay, be active in school activities and be an escort to a homecoming candidate. It was a Catholic high school which I felt should have had more compassion for their situation, especially because they were choosing to keep the baby and not abort it. Don't get me wrong, I do understand having young pregnant girls walking the halls of a Catholic school would be a message I would not want, but the way they went about it was hurtful. I am Catholic and my son and she are married and have raised the children Catholic and will be sending their one daughter to that particular high school next year, which shows they hold no animosity toward the decision that was made years ago. But girls need support and love at times like this, not shame and judgement.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #16205 on:** November 18, 2015, 11:59:47 AM »

All so true Bellamarie. Have you seen the film The Magdalene Sisters, about what happened to 'unmarried mothers' in Ireland right up until the 1970s? Some of these girls had been raped by family members, yet they were still the ones who were vilified and sent away. Another good film is Oranges and Sunshine, about the children who were sent to Australia, again right up to the 1960s-70s, and the terrible time many of them had. Their poor mothers usually did not want to give them up - they were forced to, and were told all kinds of rubbish about the wonderful families their babies would be going to. In fact most were made to work in very harsh conditions and many were abused.

It is wonderful that your son and his wife can be so forgiving. As you say, compassion is what is needed, not cruelty and blame.

Rosemary

ginny · « **Reply #16206 on:** November 18, 2015, 04:42:58 PM »

I think this is such an interesting discussion about colleges and the merits of them.

Maybe it depends on which field you are in? There are bad professors in every school, I think, maybe?

All I can think of is how much I wish I could have taken a class with Mary Beard. She is at Cambridge. I am sure that I could not qualify to get in Cambridge but to me, the fact that it has her shows what a really good university can do for you. And I think she is incredibly generous in her blog and in her speeches allowing those of us not on her exalted (no joke)_ level of access and learning to be included too. That, to me, is the mark of a real educator.

T.P:. Wiseman is another one. He was at Leicester and Exeter. In fact he was J.K. Rowling's professor of classics at Exeter, and supposedly the inspiration for Dumbledore (tho he says not).

Again, I don't know anything about Exeter but I can't imagine sitting in one of his classes 15 minutes and not knowing something that you didn't when you came in.

Neither one of those people teach within 10 hours of me.

I think , and of course this is just my opinion, for what it's worth, that in this world of the Internet, when so many people are inventing themselves daily as experts in this or that field, and portraying themselves as something they are not, that we actually need these giants in the field who do know more than 99 percent of the rest of us to keep some semblance of what is the real thing, and what is bunk. To me, that's what "higher" education is all about.

bellamarie · « **Reply #16207 on:** November 18, 2015, 06:20:45 PM »

No, Rosemary, I have not seen either of those movies but think I might like them.

Ginny, you have a more optimistic view on college professors than I do. My twenty yr. old granddaughter has a math professor who degrades and humiliates her and other students. Her major is in early childhood education and is appalled with this professor. I told her to bare with it because she has to have her one more semester and then at the end of the that semester after she has passed it, go up to the professor and say, "Thank you for teaching me how a teacher/professor should never treat their students."

I am sure there are good ones as well.

ginny · « **Reply #16208 on:** November 18, 2015, 06:51:26 PM »

That seems odd in this day and time when universities are struggling to stay afloat. Is he listed on Rate My Professor?

Would you care to say which institution this is?

bellamarie · « **Reply #16209 on:** November 18, 2015, 08:42:24 PM »

I have never heard of Rate My Professor. It is the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. It is not a he it is a she, and there were students who dropped the class early on due to the way she treated them. My granddaughter needs this class so she has to stick it out. She had other friends who have had this Professor and confirmed she treated them the same way. Sad, because my granddaughter is one of the most positive, friendly, exciting and likeable people you could ever meet.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #16210 on:** November 18, 2015, 11:37:15 PM »

Winners of the 2015 National Book Award announced tonight -

FICTION: Adam Johnson, Fortune Smiles: Stories

NONFICTION: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

Steph · « **Reply #16211 on:** November 19, 2015, 08:11:31 AM »

It is quite different now for pregnancies and other sexual quirks.. Back in the late 50's that was such an explosive issue. Two of my dear friends in high school married because they were pregnant, were not permitted to go to school . Neither marriage lasted even until the babies were born, but both girls kept their children. Rosemary, I saw Philomena a few years ago. It was marvelous about a girl who went to the nuns when pregnant and whose son was given to americans.. This was her search for him..Excellent movie.
Viet nam changed so many things in colleges... It was a violent violent time. so much pain, so much death for no reason. we were somewhere we had no right to be.. We dont seem to have learned either, since we are back to poking our noses in places they should not be.

ginny · « **Reply #16212 on:** November 19, 2015, 09:05:31 AM »

I am sorry to hear your granddaughter is having such an unpleasant time, Bellamarie. That's kind of what I was talking about. However, surely she is not without recourse. Being a grandmother myself, I can understand your concern.

Interesting, Barbara. I haven't read any of those.

I came in to say, PatH, in response to your thought a while back about sticking with The Martian over the technical stuff that I am now half way through and very much enjoying it. I did have to persuade myself not to get fixated on the scientific and technical stuff, or even worry when I don't understand them. I am finding it fascinating and I can well understand how scientists and engineers (tho he seems to have switched, did anybody catch that from mechanical engineering to electrical) but hey!

I love the premise, (Home Alone--Left Behind--- on Mars---what are you going to do?) and it's very exciting. Perhaps an overuse of the F word sort of continually. I can see how it has made a movie that is getting raves and also why astronauts love to read it. But even I who know absolutely nothing about making water from hydrogen and oxygen, nor any of the other million and one technical details, can relate to his inventiveness and pluck.

It's nice to see an Armageddon situation without its being Armageddon and to try to figure out what one would do.

It's a fun good read. First book by a young engaging author. I may give it to my engineer sons for Christmas to see what they think. Neither reads a lot of fiction.

Dana · « **Reply #16213 on:** November 19, 2015, 10:10:02 AM »

Now this is something.....

>
http://video.weibo.com/show?fid=1034:dde506266d11476e720f88d2e26baf68&type=mp4&from=timeline&isappinstalled=0

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #16214 on:** November 19, 2015, 01:25:58 PM »

Oh my a riot - oh oh oh - nothing like being the life of the party as the leader of one of the big 5s.

bellamarie · « **Reply #16215 on:** November 19, 2015, 02:10:56 PM »

Thank you Ginny, I am very confident she will forge through and from what she says, she is passing the class which is all that really matters.

Steph, both my friend and sister in law was sent to a Catholic home for unwed mothers, stayed til the baby was born, the babies were adopted and they were allowed to return home, never being allowed to speak of it. My friend actually found her daughter some twenty years later and they got to know each other, but never managed to get very close. My sister in law has never searched for her son who would be sixty years old now.

This president is pretty adamant in keeping out of as much as possible, but it does seem ISIS is intent on bringing destruction to the United States, and other places in the world, whether we are in or out of it.

Putin playing the piano....oh dear me!

Steph · « **Reply #16216 on:** November 20, 2015, 10:34:08 AM »

ISIS seems to have a good handle on publicity and getting word out. Problem here is that the disaffected young members of society see it as a thrill. No idea what will really happen, I suspect.. The passion for bombing yourself defeats me,, just like the monks who burned themselves alive.. Death is final..no if ands or buts.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #16217 on:** November 20, 2015, 02:05:03 PM »

Dana - that certainly is an interesting video. I wish they had said where and when. Altho it may say that in the Asian words. Maybe it was a UNICEF function, ala the banner of the children.Blueberry Hill is an interesting choice, i guess there is no politics in that song. LOL

jean

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #16218 on:** November 20, 2015, 02:25:53 PM »

Jean I thought it was the event in Petersburg for children's cancer - we know that Depardieu has been a big supporter of Putin - he received a hug from President Vladimir Putin and a new Russian passport after abandoning his homeland to avoid a new tax rate for millionaires.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/9783711/Vladimir-Putin-welcomes-Gerard-Depardieu-to-Russia.html

The others I think were there for the fund-raising event.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #16219 on:** November 20, 2015, 07:59:42 PM »

O.k., thanks Barb

Frybabe · « **Reply #16220 on:** November 21, 2015, 07:07:26 AM »

This looks like a fun place to visit, especially with children, if you are in the Atlanta, GA area. I found it while looking something up on American folklore (Brer Rabbit to be precise). http://www.wrensnest.org/about_mission.php

Dana · « **Reply #16221 on:** November 21, 2015, 11:30:57 AM »

Oh wow Barb, super....you know I never even noticed Depardieu (or the children motif)....I was so focused on Vladimir. I felt an immediate connect with the choice of Blueberry Hill as it was one of the first tunes I learned to play on the piano (which I just took up 2 years ago), and I play it about as well as he does! So I think it is an easy tune. I give him credit tho...wouldn't want to play it in public myself!

PatH · « **Reply #16222 on:** November 21, 2015, 12:38:12 PM »

Ginny, if you liked The Martian, you'll like the movie too. It's an excellent job of getting the spirit of the book, and the photography is gorgeous. Of course the f-word abounds in it too.

PatH · « **Reply #16223 on:** November 21, 2015, 12:48:39 PM »

Well, I can play the piano slightly better than Putin, but he can sing better than I can. His eyes look almost brown here, instead of their usual murderous ice-blue.

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #16224 on:** November 21, 2015, 04:24:09 PM »

Is that video for real, as they say? Is that really Putin or an actor? Can he speak (or sing) English that well? I recognize a few of the celebrities? Where is it taking place, if it is for real?

Now to keep up with Russia we must have Obama singing a Russian song or playing a tune?

Steph · « **Reply #16225 on:** November 22, 2015, 08:34:13 AM »

Ugh.. Somehow the idea of world leaders singing and playing the piano is not my cup of tea.. Putin has a massive ego and seems to have a need to be everything to everybody.. Sad actually.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #16226 on:** November 22, 2015, 12:47:07 PM »

Putin and Trump -

actually I prefer Putin's display of ego - no red chubby face insulting others for him...

Steph · « **Reply #16227 on:** November 23, 2015, 08:34:42 AM »

The egos of both is amazing to me.. But Trump really worries me. I remember the end of McCarthy and he attracts the same sort of fanatics.. Waterboarding. my word.. A sick human being.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #16228 on:** November 23, 2015, 09:21:37 AM »

Please tell us that Trump doesn't have a hope of becoming President. The mere thought is just too awful. Who on earth are all his supporters? Imagine him having control of nuclear weapons.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #16229 on:** November 23, 2015, 12:29:42 PM »

Rosemary as I understand it those who are angry and think the solution is to bring America back to how they remember it or their parents told them life was like in the 1950s; when Brown people lived in dusty little communities with barely enough to keep them going and Blacks knew their place and the only acceptable job procuring and voting part of society were those with European heritage. Along those lines women also knew their place and their anatomy was a mystery even to most women. However, it was a time when the middle class was on a trajectory to increased security and family financial comfort - Washington stayed inside Washington and had very little affect on the social fabric of a state much less a town or community.

That was a world that white men were kings and a few white women were queens - there was no government telling communities how to educate their kids or who to include in the schools or how they should pay for their health care etc. etc.

Trump is saying all this in a loud way saying all the nasty phrases that are considered politically incorrect - he is drumming a lot of drama, making the whole show into a soap opera and he is pushing the fears folks have about today's world as the things he is going to change in an aggressive push back way. In other words he is suggesting a typical patriarchal view of politics using the tactics of a bully - and when folks are mulling in confusion without a clear idea how to take care of themselves much less better themselves and their families, as was the unspoken promise to most Americans, then they are easily angered and need to blame something they understand. They understand 'the other' as a cause to blame but they do not understand banking, or economics or social dynamics -

I think that about says it although there are others here on Senior Learn who can add to this or give their synopsis that may have another twist or two.

Frybabe · « **Reply #16230 on:** November 23, 2015, 10:22:09 PM »

Trump' s utterances are not at all what I expect or want to hear from a potential president, let alone a world leader. I have to ask if he really wants to be President or is just making these outrageous statements for attention or to stir everybody up for what ever reason.

I so dislike extreme left or right ideology and rhetoric. My moderate sensibilities are appalled by the most of the choices, on both sides.

This is probably the strongest statement on politics and politicians you are likely to hear out of me. I tend to stay out political discussions. I do hate the nastiness, misrepresentations, nitpicks, and overblown remarks.

Oh yes, Barb, bully is a good word for Trump.

Steph · « **Reply #16231 on:** November 24, 2015, 08:35:55 AM »

Trump is a bully, but there is a certain percent of Americans, who seem to believe that going backwards to what they perceive as safe is what they want. Wont happen, but I find him terrifying enough to wonder about Canadian immigration.

ginny · « **Reply #16232 on:** November 24, 2015, 09:20:07 AM »

Bully? Remember Theodore Roosevelt and the Bully Pulpit?

I don't think anybody wants to turn back the clock. To what era? The 50's? The 60's? The Cuban Missile Crisis? The Cold War? Duck and cover under your school desk? A bomb shelter in every basement? Please.

I think supporters of Trump consist of people who are fed up. They are fed up with Washington and what they perceive as the deal making to their disadvantage, the corruption, the do nothing but line congress's own pockets, they are fed up. Trump, like the Rogue Sarah Palin before him, seems to them to be a "straight shooter," telling it "like it is." Etc., etc., etc. The 2012 horrific movie Game Change with Woody Harrelson on Sarah Palin's attempts to get elected was scary, just absolutely scary and shows you what might have been, had cooler heads not prevailed.

This type of demagogue has arisen to solve the problems of the society he lives in since the dawn of history. I don't think anybody realizes how ill prepared he really is, how powerless, how lacking in knowledge, but so many of our leaders were ill prepared and so many of them were absolutely nothing like what we thought. It's a dicey business, Democracy. I still think he's in it for the ride and shocked at his numbers.

Just this morning I was reading about a movement to remove Woodrow Wilson's name from national monuments because of his blatant racism. Who knew?

Archie Bunker was an amusing outrageous TV character, who at least had a foil in his "Meathead" son in law, and I have to say I do blame the media, believe it or not, for this phenomenon . Trump has very cleverly used the media, all of it, to get his point across. He's not a fool.

And in America, now, we're in the Age of the Media "Celebrity," and we have nobody to blame for this but ourselves.

This type of thing is fed by the ravening media, by shows like the O Reilly Factor on cable TV where people scream at each other in rising indignation all day and all night long. I really wonder why they have not all had strokes. Rabble rousing, yellow journalism, rudeness, and purporting to speak for the people, who ARE fed up.

Let's face it, there ARE no suitable candidates, at all, and that's when this type of thing arises.

His reaction to those standing in his way should tell people what and who he is. He will not be elected, and he may be doing Hilary Clinton a favor by keeping on outrageously.

ginny · « **Reply #16233 on:** November 24, 2015, 06:00:16 PM »

And since it's the holiday and my favorite holiday of them all, on a brighter note, if any of you are fans of the Best British Bake Off they've made a super hour long show on what happened to the contestants after the show (which just showed in the US on PBS even though it was done in 2013) was over and it's here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9hZDLCvZNU

It's an upper and fun to watch. Very enjoyable.

Happy Thanksgiving, those of you in the US, and Happy Weekend, those of you not. Since calories don't count on Thanksgiving, (or on any weekend), eat too much and indulge yourself.

Just this once.

Does anybody except me watch the parades any more on TV? Or do you wait for the New Year's Day Rose Parade?

We need a poll for the holiday, hold on!

Judy Laird · « **Reply #16234 on:** November 24, 2015, 06:12:15 PM »

Holiday not starting out with a bang. Candi and Jerry are down for Thanksgiving and both are sick in bed. Looks like food poising to me, lunch at Whole foods yesterday both ate green salad I on the other hand did not.
Fridge filled to overrunning and 2 turkeys somebody come help?

?

JoanK · « **Reply #16235 on:** November 25, 2015, 12:58:52 AM »

GINNY: I watched the whole last series, and missed the final. Who won?

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #16236 on:** November 25, 2015, 05:29:57 AM »

Thanks all of you who have commented re my questions about Trump - very interesting. I was just telling someone yesterday that my friends on SeniorLearn are all very intelligent, thoughtful, well read people & that far from everyone in the US thinks like that man!

Ginny, I felt a bit like that at our last general election in May - I have been a Labour voter all my life (as were my grandparents) but there was simply no credible Labour candidate. As a result, I and many, many disaffected Scottish-based voters voted SNP - and they won all but 2 or 3 seats in Scotland. At the time they were the only party with policies resembling what Labour's should have been. Now Jeremy Corbyn has replaced Milliband as Labour leader and many of us feel we at last have a person we can vote for again (though of course there is unlikely to be another election till 2020). It's so depressing when you look at the ballot paper and see a list of useless candidates - but at least none of ours was quite as dreadful as Trump. We do have the awful (IMO) UKIP party, but they never had a hope of winning, thank goodness.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #16237 on:** November 25, 2015, 05:33:18 AM »

We have just had another series of the Bake Off - I don't know if you will have seen that yet?

Now of course there are all kinds of copycat programmes, some better than others. At the moment we have The Great Pottery Throw Down, which Madeleine and I are enjoying, though not as much as the Bake Off, probably because no-one can better Sue Perkins as a presenter or Mary Berry (Saint Mary of Berry, as she is known in our house) as a judge. And there's also no-one to get mad with - Paul Holloway does have his uses! But it's not a bad programme, and anyone interested in ceramics would definitely enjoy it - there's also some history thrown in, as they are setting in in the Stoke-on-Trent area - the original potteries, now mostly long gone.

I do enjoy my comfort viewing!

Rosemary

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #16238 on:** November 25, 2015, 05:34:48 AM »

Oh poor you Judy! Isn't it just the way things so often turn out? I hope your family is feeling better today and that you have not been affected.

Sadly I can't pop over for some turkey! Can you cook it, slice it and put it in the freezer? I know that's not the same, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

Hope you have a good time somehow :-)

Steph · « **Reply #16239 on:** November 25, 2015, 08:33:41 AM »

Rosemary, Does England have a comparable holiday to Thanksgiving?? A fall festival of sorts..? I know that Canada has a Thanksgiving, it is somewhat earlier than ours.
I do laugh.. Ginny, Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday. It is centered on eating.. and for me, driving two and a half hours to my son and daughter in laws.I love my children, etc, but I also now live alone,, so the noise and commotion is exhausting. Oh well. suck it up tomorrow..
did email MaryPage, since she has not been posting. She seems to be recovering from her last treatment and one of the drugs was not a good match for her.
Way way back, I was in the Pillsbury Bakeoff and several years in the Chicken cooking contest that originated on the Delmarva Peninsula.. Bakeoff was fun, won nothing,. but placed several times in the chicken one and won the frypan division one year.. Hmm, Do people still use frypans??

News:

Author Topic: The Library (Read 2084480 times)