Month: July 2005

Blackout

The song playing in my head: Last Night, I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All. Actually, the last TWO nights.

Seems like only yesterday that I was in the dark in the sweltering heat without electricity. Wait, that WAS yesterday.

Let’s start with Monday night. It was warm and I had trouble sleeping. So I got up, posted my Tuesday blog, worked on a future piece, went downstairs to read or watch TV. I wondered what was the ugly thing Carol had attached to the curtain rod on the (partially glass) front door. Suddenly I realized it was a sleeping bat! Crap, I HATE bats. I paced around for about 10 minutes, then got a towel, grabbed the bat, opened the door, and tossed the bat (and towel) out the front door. I went upstairs and told Carol, and neither of us got any sleep the rest of the night.

Tuesday morning, the towel is still outside. Is the bat still in it? I put the towel in a box. Carol took the box to a lab, where the technician found no bat. In other words, I had put a towel in a box, and poked holes in it so it could breathe.

Tuesday noon, the Health Department didn’t believe we were exposed to rabies.

Prevention

Tuesday night, Carol implemented some bat-proofing activities, which included putting down a towel (another towel, not the bat towel) in the space under the door leading to the attic. This process also involved staring at the roofline at dusk to see if a bat might come in, so we could identify how the bat came in. This was a fruitless activity. We went to bed around 10:15 p.m.

At 10:30 p.m., the power went off, only for a few seconds, but long enough for the clocks to go to the flashing mode. Carol reset the clock, we went back to bed, and the power went out again, for 3 to 5 minutes. She reset the clocks AGAIN, and we returned to bed.

Daughter Lydia has a tendency to wake up during the night, but then she rolls over and goes back to sleep. But at 12:30 or so, she must have seen the netting Carol put over her crib as bat-proofing, and she started wailing uncontrollably. She stood up, which made her even more frantic. I went into her room and picked her up, expecting to rock her back to sleep in the guest room.

Then the power went off AGAIN. So I brought Lydia to our bed, because I figured it would be better to be on the prowl for bats together, and I got a flashlight. The power remained off. As the air outside became more still, the stickiness quotient increased. I looked for batteries for the portable radio to see if I could get some news. I found 4 new C batteries; unfortunately, the radio needed 6 D batteries.

Redux

I got dressed to go to the 24-hour grocery store a couple of blocks away. While we had no power, the school across the street that’s being torn down must have a generator for their night work. A house two doors down must also have a backup system. The main street in the area, Madison Avenue, was fairly well lit. The library had an emergency light system, the police station, the TrustCo bank and the gas station (which was closed) all had some lights from generators.

Unfortunately, the Price Chopper on Madison was dark. Almost mockingly, the street east of Main Street, just a block away in that direction, was lit. As I peered south down West Lawrence, dark as far as I could see, I discovered a peculiar thing. Tree-lined streets are lovely in the day, and quaint at night with street lights. But these same trees block the limited illumination of a half-moon already obscured by high clouds, making the trek down that street feel like a tunnel, with only a flashlight for guidance. It was strangely unsettling.

I went home, and the three of us slept, more off than on. (At 3 a.m., it was 79 degrees F, with a relative humidity of 66.9 at the Albany Airport, which is usually COOLER than it is in town – that reading meant hot and quite humid.) Finally, at 4:15 a.m. yesterday morning, power was finally restored.

The other tune running through my head is I’m So Tired.

Creative Commons

As a librarian, I tend to be cognizant of, and pulled by, two often conflicting values, the widespread distribution of information versus the desire to honor intellectual property rights (copyright, trademark, patent), the latter so the creators will be willing and able to “do it again.”

(Not that I always ABIDE by the latter, but I usually have a good excuse, or a very good rationalization.)

So, I was very interested in reading an article in the July/August 2005 Searcher, “The Magazine for Database Professionals”. The article, “Generosity and Copyright” by Laura Gordon-Murname, asked the question, “How can you help patrons identify public domain content…?”

The copyright law has become more skewed towards the copyright holder over time, especially since 1978, with longer periods and more lenient applications, so that the doodle on a napkin or a quick e-mail becomes copyrightable. According to Gordon-Murname, there are many critics who believe these changes fly in the face of the law as envisioned by Jefferson and his contemporaries. She quotes Larry Lessig, who says this “permission culture” has changed from “an opt-in system in which creators were required to register to an opt-out system.”

The Creative Commons Foundation was founded in 2001 to create “balance, compromise and moderation” for copyrights, offering “creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them.” Creative Commons has developed tools so that creative people who wish to share their work can specify who can use their works and under what circumstances.

Try the Creative Commons search mechanism or the new (March 2005) Yahoo! Search Creative Commons Search. You will be able to ascertain if the work:
– is in the public domain
– requires attribution
– can’t be use commercially
– must be used as is (no derivatives)
– allows for sampling

Of course, many federal government web sites are in the public domain. Gordon-Murname lists these sites that offer public domain content:
Library of Congress
National Archives
NASA
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Also these other PD locations:
Public Library of Science
Ibiblio, “the public’s library and digital archive”
Project Gutenberg, “the Internet’s oldest producer of FREE electronic books (eBooks or eTexts)”
The Online Books Page
Bartleby.com, “Great Books Online”

Some recent comments from the Copyright Office indicate that the Office is considering asking Congress to allow the “marketplace” to determine the price of using copyrighted material (after making almost everything imagineable under copyright), and expects the would-be user to go to the copyright holder to negotiate the price, if one can even FIND the copyright holder. I’m afraid this would stifle creativity in favor of endless litigation. Perhaps this “middle way” is a solution.

ROG

The Lydster, Part 16 "In My Own Little Corner"

I was a big fan of the 1966 television production of “Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella”. It starred Lesley Ann Warren and Stuart Damon. I loved the songs, even the goofy ones like “The Prince is Giving a Ball.”
Herald: His royal highness Christopher Rupert Vwindemier Vlandamier Carl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman
Boy: HERMAN?
Herald: Herman.. Gregory James is giving a ball.

I think I liked the production in large part because I had a great big crush on Lesley Ann Warren.

(There was a 1957 version with Julie Andrews and Jon Cypher, which I don’t remember, although it may have been seen by more people than the M*A*S*H finale.)

Both versions features Cinderella singing “In My Own Little Corner”:
In my own little corner in my own little chair
I can be whatever I want to be.
On the wings of my fancy I can fly anywhere
and the world will open its arms to me.

There were times when I was a teenager, and even a few times as an adult, when I’d be at a party and feel suddenly overwhelmed- by too many people, or by some uncomfortable situation, or for no discernable reason at all. I’d go off to an unoccupied room, even the attic or cellar, or an unused stairwell, just to get away for a while, my version of “my own little corner.”

Daughter Lydia likes hanging out in corners, between the CD cases, in the bathroom, under the sink (which no longer has anything under it.) Sometimes she gets into hiding in the smallest spaces, then gets trapped, like cat stuck in a tree, and needs to be rescued.

I want for her to be whatever she wants to be. I want her to be able to fly anywhere. I desparately want the world to open its arms to her, though I know that won’t always happen, and that she’ll want to climb back into her own little corner.

I need to learn how to make her safe enough to venture out again, if I can. Like last week, when she went into a swimming pool for the very first time, and liked it…at least the top two steps.

Happy year and a third, Lydia.

ROG

Flip Flop Flap

There were two fairly minor stories in the news last week that caught my fancy. Both involved decorum and both reminded me of my father, one obtusely.

The first was the “flip flop flap”, the story of some young women on the Northwestern women’s lacrosse team who were invited to the White House to meet W and were chastised for wearing flip flops as opposed to shoes, preferably closed-toe shoes. Five of the nine in the first row were wearing this apparently awful apparel.

For some reason, this “lack of propriety” reminded me of a trip my family took from Charlotte to Raleigh, NC some 10 or 20 years ago. My father was complaining that the late Gregory Hines had worn an earring to some black-tie event honoring black Americans, probably an NAACP awards thing, that was televised. Dad complained that Hines was showing disrespect to the organization. My sister Leslie and I argued that he ALWAYS wore an earring, that this was not something he did to dis the event, and for a male actor to wear an earring was no big deal. This conversation went back and forth for about 90 miles, with neither side backing down.

The other story was about Why Knot, a robot that can tie a tie, but only certain types of knots. The link to my father was more obvious. We were having our family portrait taken in 1975, at a time when my relationship with him was in one of those shaky periods. He stood about four feet from my mother and me, and he asked my MOTHER, “Wouldn’t Roger want to wear a tie?” Well, Roger never WANTS to wear a tie, as he finds them noose-like and unnecessary. But if Roger’s father had asked ROGER if Roger WOULD wear a tie, it is likely that Roger would have complied. But since Roger’s dad asked Roger’s mom instead, the answer was: “No way.” And I think of that story every time I see that picture. (Talk about “Every picture tells a story.”)

I wouldn’t wear flip-flops to see the President, but I never expect that I’ll ever be asked to visit the White House. Also, I don’t own any flip-flops, and I don’t think I’d buy some if the occasion did arise. As for Why Knot, do we REALLY need a machine that will help us cut off blood and oxygen to the brain?

RM3

More Random Meanderings (or Random Mutterings or Ruminating Madness or Roger’s Minutae):

This is my blogger code: B1 d- t- k+ s– u– f+ i o x- e- l c–
For a translation, go here.
***
Someone showed me what you can do with a Windows keyboard. (Besides throw it out the window.) When you press the Windows key (between Ctrl and Alt) and M, it minimizes all the windows you may have opened! Maybe you knew that already, but it’s come in handy for me when I have eight windows open and I can’t see what I’m doing anymore.
***
I set up another blog to put articles I think are interesting, but that aren’t mine. Here’s the first post about oil running out, with commentary by my acerbic bud, Daniel W. Van Riper. When the U.S. first went into Iraq, there was a widespread fear that oil may have been a motive. Reading this reminded me of that discussion.
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When I take Lydia for a walk in her carriage, and dog walkers approach, they almost always say that the dog “is friendly” or “doesn’t bite”. Please allow me the privilege of being a little bit wary anyway.
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My friend Claudia writes: “Guess no more what the film of the summer is. LADIES IN LAVENDER with Dame Judith Dench and Maggie Smith was a visual feast of beautiful England, enchanting story, complete with the mastery of Joshua Bell. We just adored every moment of English country side, the crashing ocean, melding personal stories. In other words it is delicious and enjoy every moment of it.” I haven’t seen it, but she generally has very good taste.
***
John Rodat has a Myth America columm about Buddhist monks and moving that I related to heavily, and you collector types may as well. If it ain’t there anymore, it’s here.
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I was on the bus home a couple weeks ago when I see a guy get on. He was very striking young man, very fair skin, head shaved, oddly shaped glasses. He was wearing a black T-shirt that read in white letters, “Day of Silence.” I might have thought nothing more about this, except that he had pulled out a cell phone almost immediately after he had gotten on the bus. So, my eyes HAD to follow him to the back of the bus, where he sat, silently, playing some sort of electronic game.
***
This is one of those a/v pieces that is funny and scary in equal measure. It appears that the Opus Sunday strip a couple weeks ago was inspired by this concept.
***
I shaved my beard on July 4. People seeing me the next couple days often commented, “Oh, you look so much younger!” as though that would prompt me to shave more often. Not a chance. Razor is brutal tool to use on face. I did it once because I was hot. However, even when I’m done shaving, I have a 5 o’clock shadow of Nixonian proportions, and impenetrable stubble on the jaw line. Besides, I’m contrarian enough to wonder why it’s so hot to look “younger”. There’s a mindset, epitomized by those inane Clyde Frazier/Keith Hernandez Just for Men hair coloring ads, that gray is bad. Gray is good; “gray matter” represents the brain, after all.

ROG
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