Ramblin' with Roger

Yikes! I’m going to need an absentee ballot!

library and school votes in ALB and statewide

I was going to be away starting on Tuesday, May 19, for the day. But I thought I could vote for the Albany school board, the library board, the school budget, and the library budget first thing in the morning, i.e., 7 a.m. But yikes! Because my travel plans changed, I’m going to need an absentee ballot! What is that process?

I need to go to the City School District of Albany headquarters, 1 Academy Park, Albany, NY, United States, 12207. This is the building northwest of Albany City Hall, south of Elk Street. And I need to go when the building is open, weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Not incidentally, New York State voters: you should check to see if there are budget and or board votes on May 19.

My next issue is deciding who to vote for in the library trustees races. Other than Sarah Macinski, I still don’t yet know which three of the nine candidates to select. I was impressed with them as a collective. I’ve asked people whose judgment I trust, and they were in similar straits. This is actually a good problem to have. I’m voting for both budgets and both school propositions. There will be a ZOOM candidate debate for the school board on May 18 at 6 pm, but I will have to have voted by then.

I ALWAYS vote, dammit!

If you are voting at the polls in Albany on May 19, go to page 10 of this document for the location.

My wife said that she’s impressed by my commitment to voting. I probably said something like, “The franchise has not been available to everyone, and I’m certainly not throwing away my opportunity.” It’s also true that I believe local races are often more significant than larger races, yet participation rates are generally pathetic. It’s simple math: other people’s apathy gives my vote more impact.

ICE discussion Thursday, May 14

Off topic, except for the venue:

Come join the NYCLU Capital Region community for an annual meeting on Thursday, May 14, at 5:30 pm in the Large Auditorium at the Albany Public Library Main Branch, 161 Washington Avenue, Albany.

The Topic is Constitutional Rights & Immigration

Led by Lauren DesRosiers, Assistant Professor and Director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the Edward P. Swyer Justice Center at Albany Law School, alongside Diego H. Alcalá Laboy, Assistant Professor at Albany Law School, this session is designed to help participants understand their rights in encounters with law enforcement or immigration officials. Topics include stops and seizures, customs and border protection, protesting and filming, as well as practical tips for being prepared in a range of scenarios.

Refreshments will be provided. Free and open to the public.

RSVP here:

https://secure.ngpvan.com/1Z0zBn2w9UWcO07tOpbsVg2

How Do You Know What Is True?

without a soupçon of proof

“How do you know what is true?” I find this to be a fascinating question. In mid-autumn 2025, a couple of guys came onto my porch and knocked on my door. Looking through the front window, I assumed that they were from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I could have ignored them, I suppose, but I’m always interested in conversing about issues of faith. Indeed, I’ve talked with Mormons before; I even have a Book of Mormon, which I suppose undercut one of the young men’s talking points. (I’ve TRIED to read it, but it hasn’t grabbed me.)

One of the guys was from Utah (no surprise) and the other from Arizona. The one who did much less of the talking was the one who asked, “How do you know what is true?”

Part of it is observation. If I let go of a pencil, it falls. Some of it has been drawn from what I’ve read. When I was a kid, I absorbed the entire Encyclopedia Americana, plus its annual updates. And, as often noted, I received the World Almanac almost every year from 1963 to 2018, and devoured a lot of random statistics.

823 years!

This is why I was so quick to debunk that Internet myth that a particular calendar pattern happens only every 823 years. There’s a LOT of stuff online I don’t trust. When someone states something as fact, and I haven’t seen it, I often ask where they saw it. When they say, “On Facebook” or “the Internet,” I’ve been known to press for more information; what site on the Internet, for instance.

There’s someone I’ve known IRL, and a person I know indicated that he died. But I’ve seen nothing like a news article or an obituary, something I could use to verify. I’m loath to share faulty information. When I hear a famous person has died, I wait until I’ve seen the news in two or three historically reliable sources. It’s one of the reasons I’ve subscribed to GroundNews: to see other, diverse sources.

But I’m also willing to recognize that our understanding of information changes.

When my father painted my ceiling to reflect the planets in the Milky Way, there were no moons around Mercury and Venus, one around Earth, two around Mars, 12 around Jupiter, nine around Saturn, five around Uranus, one around Neptune, and none around Pluto. The inner planets would be the same, but Jupiter has at least 95, Saturn has 274(!), Uranus has 28, and Neptune has 16. Pluto is no longer considered a planet, but the largest of its five moons, Charon, is half Pluto’s diameter.

This doesn’t mean science was”wrong,” but that more information has been gleaned. I get frustrated when the result of additional knowledge is presented as “they were lying to us” without a soupçon of proof.

Uh-uh

As an information specialist – my title for a time – I’m discouraged when misinformation or disinformation is readily disseminated. This is not new – I read about Bob Denver’s “recent” death in 2012 when he passed away in 2005.

But the algorithm is far more robust now, and that was before the onslaught of Artificial Intelligence. I find information nearly every day that is reductive at best, summarizing other sources, often poorly. And sometimes it’s just wrong to conflate people with the same or similar names.

When I was first online in the late 1990s, I took it upon myself – now it sounds ridiculous – to “correct the Internet.” Now it’s nigh unto impossible, and it frightens me how resilient BS can be. Neil deGrasse Tyson gives us pointers on what to believe on the Internet and what not to believe.

It’s not a new problem, though. “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (2 Jan 1920-1992)

The proximity of the cemetery

DelSo wrote a blog post called “Tea with My Dad” about a meeting that took place in Dublin, Ireland, at Deansgrange Cemetery, where he’s resided since 1984.

In response to a comment of mine, she asked, As a child, were you comfortable with the proximity of the cemetery? I know there are people who find them frightening, but I think they’re very peaceful – and so interesting.

The cemetery in question for me was Spring Forest Cemetery in Binghamton, NY. Yes, I was comfortable because it was quite open and lovely.

Shortcut

It was where we cut through to get to Ansco’s baseball field. I mean, we COULD have gone down to Elm Street and walked across, but 1) it would have been longer, and 2) what would have been the joy in walking on concrete?

We also used the cemetery paths for sledding. The northernmost part of the facility, as well as the adjacent Mygatt Street, was downhill from Prospect Street, past Cypress Street, before leveling off at Spring Forest Avenue.

As I showed in this post about Binghamton’s First Ward, especially the eastern half, the cemetery was a dominant feature of the neighborhood. I went past it when we walked friend Karen home on Mygatt Street, on my way to my grandma Williams’ house on Maple Street. My piano teacher, Mrs. Hamlin, also lived across from it, on Elm Street.

Only occasionally did we think of it as a place full of dead people. I knew my maternal grandmother’s maternal grandfather, Civil War veteran James Archer, was buried in the northeastern corner, as were his wife Harriet Bell Archer; his children Morgan Archer, Edward Archer (and his wife Elizabeth), and Lillian Archer Yates; his grandson Ernest Yates (and eventually Edward Yates). But except for Ed Yates, I didn’t know any of them. I DID know Ernie’s widow, Charlotte, their kids, and grandkids.

Mother’s Day learning curve

m,y friends’ moms

One of the interesting tensions about having a kid, our kid, was the perception of the two parents. My wife thought she had a pretty good handle on it, whereas I felt I knew nothing.

Okay, that’s a bit hyperbolic. My wife knew there would be some learning curve, but that she’d “get” it. I watched my nieces and babysat a couple of other kids, so I figured that I wouldn’t totally wreck a child – or I hoped not.

The moment I realized we, as a couple, didn’t know something was when we both failed at swaddling. Hospital nurses tried to teach us, but we both sucked as students.

I think my wife was shocked that she couldn’t “get” it. My response was more nuanced; I figured that if I failed at origami, I’d also fail to master swaddling. It’s not that I was HAPPY that my wife and I didn’t catch on to it; that child had powerful lungs. But it did make me less incompetent. Or we were equally incompetent.

But in so many other ways, she was and is a very good mom.

Trudy

Sometimes, I think about my mom. She worked outside of the home, often leaving us in the hands of her superstitious mother. How did she feel about that? Did she wish she could have afforded to stay home like many of my friends’ moms? It is true that I knew some of my friends’ moms more than my friends got to know my mom.

(Interestingly, my dad got to see my classmates, and vice versa, when I was in 3rd to 6th grade because he came to my classroom every semester to sing folk songs.)

I often got the sense that my mom thought she was still “figuring things out.” It could have been a function of growing up with her grandmother, mother, aunt, and at least one uncle, who seemed overly protective, I’ve heard. Since my mom died 15 years ago, I can’t ask her, alas.

Sunday Stealing — Thunking again

Scheherazade and Other Stories by Renaissance

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Once upon a time, in a blogosphere far, far away, there was a popular meme called Thursday Thunks. Alas, the thunking stopped back in 2011.

Thursday Thunks again

1. Is there anyone whose home you enter without knocking? Does anyone (who doesn’t live with you) have permission to enter your home without knocking?

Not currently, but back when he lived in Albany in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a bunch of us would go to Walter’s house to play hearts (a card game). There would be a game going on four or five nights a week, with a rotating crew of players. Everybody knew where the key was, so there were people often coming in and out. I remember specifically May 4, 1988, when Walter wasn’t even there, having been delayed at work. The house was physically constructed so that his wife, in the main bedroom upstairs, didn’t even hear us.

2. Tell us about a school trip you took.

The parents of our friend Carol had a cottage on a lake in northern Pennsylvania, which our whole class was invited to go to several times when we were growing up. It was a lovely time. Carol’s older sister was there, often with a couple of friends, one of whom I had a mad, unrequited crush.

In reach

3. Name three things within arm’s reach right now (but they can’t relate to your phone, computer, or laptop).

A large red Dixie cup, which I use for drinking water. A compact disc player – currently playing Try A Little Tenderness from The Three Dog Night Story, 1965-1975; in the queue, Scheherazade and Other Stories by Renaissance (Song of Scheherazade) and Reload by Tom Jones (Burning Down The House with the Cardigans). And, of course, a slew of books on the shelf in front of me, mostly music books from Record Research, edited by the late Joel Whitburn, such as Across the Charts: The 1960s.

4. Weather permitting, do you dry your clothes outdoors on a clothesline?

The clothes dryer. But when we first bought the house in 2000, we quickly discovered that the existing dryer was totally inadequate. It would dry four items in about two hours. So until we could afford a new machine, we dried clothes, usually on a clothes rack in the spare bedroom, or occasionally outdoors.

5. If every flower in the world only bloomed in one color, what color would you like to see?

Purple. Our daughter’s name is associated with the color.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.