Ramblin' with Roger

Underground Railroad Educational Center v. NEH

Interpretive Center

I have been a fan of the Underground Railroad Educational Center since its inception in 2003. Actually, well before then. UREC is a non-profit organization that seeks, among other things, “to promote and encourage knowledge and understanding of the Underground Railroad Movement and its genesis and legacy in the Capital Region and in New York State, and as a significant element of the history of the United States.”

I’ve known its founders, Paul and Mary Liz Stewart, since before they first started giving tours of significant locations in Albany. The UREC has held conferences that I’ve attended. The moving July 4 responses to Frederick Douglass’s famous speech on the topic are on my calendar each year. The Stewarts are featured on this recent WTEN digital story.

I attended the groundbreaking of the Interpretive Center, very close to the historic residence of abolitionists Stephen and Harriet Myers at 194 Livingston Avenue in Albany, NY.

Then the $250,000 grant the museum had won in 2024 was canceled, DOGEd out in May 2025 as part of the regime’s anti-DEI effort. This was understandably devastating news.

News

But I read recently in The Washington Post [behind a paywall] that UREC is suing the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and several other officials in a case filed Friday. March 20, in the U.S. District Court in Albany. “The lawsuit accuses the government of violating the center’s First and Fifth Amendment rights.”

Reading the WaPo comments, I realize, yet again, that people only understand part of the story. If the money was allocated in 2024, how could the funds be cut in 2025? In part, the money was tied to matching funds the UGEC has been diligently raising.

I was surprised by the news, assuming they did not have the means to engage attorneys. “The lawsuit was filed through Lawyers for Good Government, an organization that provides free legal services for public interest cases.” Ah, that makes sense.

Here’s the Albany Times Union [behind a paywall]. Syracuse.com [usually available], and NBC News [available] stories.

Three Trustees for the APL Board to be chosen May 19

I will be reviewing Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser April 14

ITEM, from here: Albany voters will select three trustees for the APL Board of Trustees in the Tuesday, May 19, election. Two positions carry full five-year terms, while the third (partial) term is for one year.

Albany residents interested in running for a seat on the board need to complete and submit nominating petitions. The petitions, eligibility information, and instructions are posted on the Library Budget page, and paper copies are available at all seven APL branches.

Trustee nominating petitions, with at least 65 signatures of qualified voters, are due to the Clerk of the City School District of Albany (1 Academy Park) by 5 pm on Wednesday, April 29. Trustee candidate names are announced after the school district validates the submitted nominating petitions.

The library’s trustee election and budget vote share a ballot with the city school district vote, which also takes place on May 19. Note that the locations may differ from the primary and general election sites.

The library is hosting a second Trustee Candidate Information Session (the first was on March 12):

March 26 (Thu) | 6:30-8 pm | Delaware Branch | 331 Delaware Ave.

At the information session, current trustees will be on hand to answer questions about how to get on the ballot, tips for a successful campaign, and what it’s like to serve as a library trustee.

You can also view an informational presentation online.

APL Budget Vote

“Albany city residents will also vote on the library’s 2026-2027 operating budget tax levy… The budget plan was approved by the library’s Board of Trustees at its March 10 meeting.

“The proposed 2026-2027 operating tax levy of $9,661,856 would result in an increase of $42.58 for the owner of a home assessed at $250,000. The spending plan represents a 17% increase in the annual total operating budget tax levy.

“’Our main goal is securing adequate funding for the library and everything that it provides to our community,’ said Board President Sarah Macinski. ‘This increase addresses the impact of some expenses that have spiked in recent years, like health benefits and utilities, while ensuring we have enough reserve funds to maintain branch facilities and be grant-eligible for future renovations.'”

Honestly, I believe part of the cause of the larger-than-usual request this year was that, during more than one year in the 2010s, the trustees chose not to ask for an increase. This meant the previous year’s budget was automatically passed even as expenses went up.

Diverse viewpoints

ITEM: From the Times Union (likely behind a paywall)

NY Regents to vote on library rules, including support for ‘diverse viewpoints.’

“All public libraries need to set specific policies on how new materials are selected and how people can object, the state librarian told the Board of Regents Monday [3/9]…

“State librarian Lauren Moore emphasized that each library Board of Trustees can write its own policies. But they must support the concept of selecting ‘diverse viewpoints,’ she said.

“Library directors should take care to buy materials on viewpoints they themselves disagree with, rather than only choosing materials with ideas they support, she added.

“They must also set rules for public use of meeting rooms, which must also be available to groups from a diverse set of viewpoints, she said.”

The Regents did indeed pass the new rules. (Thanks to TU reporter Kathleen Moore for helping me find this.) Most larger libraries likely have such policies in place, but it may be an issue at smaller ones.

Indeed, Albany Public Library does have both a Materials Selection Policy and a Material Reconsideration Request Form. The reconsideration request form includes an option to object to a library program.

Book reviews and author talks (including me!)

Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Avenue, Tuesdays at 2 pm in the large auditorium

April 7 | Author Interview | David Sylvestor, local writer & instructor, will be asked about his 2024 Erie Canal crime novel, Hung Be the Heavens with Scarlet, by poet Therese L. Broderick, MFA.

April 14 | Book Review | Mona’s Eyes, a novel by the French art historian Thomas Schlesser. Reviewer: Roger Green, MLS, business librarian retired from the NY Small Business Development Center.

April 21 | Book Review | The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics by Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, & Mark Olshaker. Reviewer: Bryon Backenson, Director, Bureau of Communicable Disease Control, NYS Dept. of Health.

April 28 | Author Talk | David Ricci, from the Berkshires, discusses & reads from his book of photographs, Hunter Gatherer: Salvaged Stories of American Culture, with text by Cheryl Finley.

Cap Rep: Archduke

the Great War

The play Archduke. playing at Cap Rep in Albany, NY, through Sunday, March 29, is about the plot to assassinate the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which helped start World War I.

Yet the story is not only informative about the political machinations that preceded the Great War but is often quite laugh-out-loud funny.

Archduke was written by Rajiv Joseph, who has had 17 plays produced in 20 years, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.” It was previously produced at a theater in Philadelphia, with mostly the same small cast and the same director, Blanka Zizka

The play opens with 19-year-olds Gavrilo (Suli Holum) and Nedeljko (Sarah Gliko) meeting at a secret location in Belgrade. As John Green would say Everything Is Tuberculosis. The two young men and a third, Trifko (Brandon J. Pierce), are all suffering from the deadly disease.

Meaning of life

Impoverished and looking for meaning in their too-short lives, the trio have been recruited by a Serbian army officer named Apsis (James Konicek, the only one not from the Philadelphia cast) to train to liberate Serbia from its Austro-Hungarian overlords. The leavening of the indoctrination comes from Apsis’s savvy cook, Sladjana (Melanye Finister), who slyly undermines her boss’s mission. Is despair and destruction the only path?

While the dialogue was fictionalized, the narrative of these young men being recruited by the anti-empire Black Hand is historically accurate.

An interesting choice by director Zizka was the casting of 40ish women as Gavrilo and Nedeljko. Per the program: “Zizka believes that casting shouldn’t be based on finding an actor most like the character, because ‘acting is transformation.'”

The production is further enhanced by the imaginative staging – the intentionally anachronistic wheeled chairs cracked me up – and the effective projections designed by Jorge Cousineau and Michael Long.

If the play Archduke comes to your town, go see it. Here’s the page about its Philadelphia run in early 2025 and the Playbill from its off-Broadway production in late 2025. My wife and I saw it at Cap Rep on Saturday, March 14, at the matinee.

Sunday Stealing Feels Distinctly Adolescent

live wire

Welcome to Sunday Stealing, which feels distinctly adolescent. 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!

This week’s Sunday source is Minnesota Mom, who loves baking (especially cookies). She stole this meme from Esther, whose blog is no longer available, so the trail has gone cold.

These questions require just a yes or no, but you can answer at length if you’re in the mood. The choice is yours!

Litter

But before we get to that, here’s what happened very late Sunday night/very early Monday morning, March 15/16. I was downstairs watching TV about 11:45 pm when the doorbell rang. That’s really unusual. Was there an accident? Is my house on fire? No, the guy said he really needed money to get something to eat. He promised to pick up the litter from my lawn.

Let’s talk about litter. My wife is assiduously dedicated to keeping the trash from our yard. Yet, a day after she’s done, you would not have known of her efforts. It’s not just the schoolkids nearby; it’s the wind.

So I tell the guy at the door. “Sure, whatever,” give him a $5 and quickly close the door. BTW, he does pick up some of our litter.

Electric

About a half hour later, I’m in my office, which is on the second floor at the front of the house, playing Wordle. By now, the rain is pouring, and the wind is gusting so much, perhaps 50 miles per hour/80 kilometers per hour, that the walls are shaking.

Out my front window, in my periphery, I see a large spark. A tree branch has felled a power line that ran from a telephone pole on my side of the street to a house across the street. The large branch lands in the middle of the street, right next to what I assume is a live wire, beside my wife’s car.

I could have called National Grid, our power supplier, but I chose to ring the Albany Police Department’s non-emergency number. After all, they are only two blocks away. The dispatcher tells me that it’s very windy out there, which I acknowledged. But soon, there’s a fire truck blocking my street.

In the morning, the wire is wound up, the branch is gone, and a truck is parked in front of the house, doing SOMETHING, because it’s running 24/7. Two days later, four trucks, including a cherry picker, are out there fixing the situation.

But I wonder if the guy repairing something at the top of the pole somehow mucked up my Internet. It’s not OFF, but I can’t get to sites, or it’s very slow.

On to the quiz

Have You Ever …

1) Skipped school?

The first time I remember doing so was when I had been legitimately sick for a day or two. I was feeling better, but I learned that the Beatles’ new videos were going to premiere on a show called Where The Action Is, which was, inexplicably, airing at 8:30 a.m. So I watched Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. This must have been February of 1967.

The next time was when Julian Bond came to town in 1969.

2) Lettered in a school sport?

No, I never did school sports. I did show up one day at a football tryout, but the ill-fitting equipment and general vibe weren’t for me.

3) Made a prank phone call?

Probably, but I have no strong recollection.

4) Paid for a meal with coins?

Yes, definitely, in 1978 in downtown Schenectady. I went out to breakfast or lunch with a friend, but was short on cash. To be fair, I doubt the meal was more than $4, including the tip.

5) Laughed until some sort of beverage came out of your nose?

Possibly, but I don’t really remember.

Spring songs

Classics Explained

I was trying to decide what to play for some spring songs. Fortunately, I pulled Joel Whitburn’s Album Cuts, 1955-2001 off my shelf. The annoying thing is that, as a strict list, it does not differentiate between songs with the same title but are different, and covers of the same song.

Spring – Little Milton (1969)

Spring – John Denver (1972)

Spring – Meryl Streep · George Winston (1985) from The Velveteen Rabbit, a story I love

Spring – · Ned’s Atomic Dustbin (1992)

These were all different songs, despite the same title.

Spring Again – Lou Rawls (1977)

Spring Fever – Biz Markie (1989)

Now, I come to a song with oodles of covers. “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” (1955) is a popular song with lyrics by Fran Landesman, set to music by Tommy Wolf. The title is a jazz rendition of the opening line of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, “April is the cruelest month.” The song describes how somebody feels sad and depressed despite all the good things associated with spring

Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most – The Pete Jolly Trio (1963)

Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most – Ella Fitzgerald (1960)

Then…

Spring Collection – The Vapors (1980)

Spring Comes To Spiddal – The Waterboys (1990)

Spring Is Here – Peter Nero. When I tried to search for Nero’s Spring Concerto from 1961, this is what came up.

Spring Creek – George Winston (1991) from the album Summer

Spring Fever -· Elvis Presley (1965)

Spring Fever – Orleans (1976)

I was unfamiliar with all of the songs.

Highbrow

There are two pieces of music I play every vernal equinox. The first is The Rite of Spring (1913) by Igor Stravinsky. I always loved the story of the ballet, explained entertainingly by Classics Explained.

There are several recordings. I decided on Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky (1960) with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra.

The other annual ritual is playing The Four Seasons (1725) by Antonio Vivaldi. I prefer summer and winter; the solstices are in minor keys, whereas the equinoxes are in major keys.