Martin Gardner was the editor of the mathematical puzzles feature in Scientific American for more than twenty years. Although I rarely ever solved one of his puzzles, they opened my mind.
He was also one of the first skeptics I'd ever read. I've collected his books, found in second hand stores, for years.
He should be missed.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Feeling My Age
Well, it's probably past time that I should. And if I'm being honest, I've been feeling it in pieces for quite a while now.
I started wearing bifocal glasses when I was in my late forties. I've had arthritic knees for at least as long. I've had arthritis in the vertebrae in my lower back for about two years. My hair's been greying for at least ten years and I finished menopause five years or so ago.
But was I aging? Not in my mind. In my mind, I had the same body image that I had in my thirties, mirrors and clothes sizes notwithstanding. The thing that's really brought me to some sort of realization, oddly enough, is Facebook.
On Facebook, I'm friends with people I know because of my job, that I've worked with, that I've met in the last few years. but I'm also friends with a bunch of people that I've known since high school and before. I'm friends with a guy I've known since I was five and now I'm friends with a woman that grew up in the same garden apartment I did in Montclair, NJ. I've known her probably since I was seven or so, because she's a few years younger than I am.
There was a pack of about eight kids that played together. The age spread was about five years from the oldest to the youngest. I was probably in the older third and this woman, girl then, was in the younger third. I remember a couple of things about playing with her. Probably the thing I remember best, though not to my credit, was this time she was going to race off to the play yard. She yelled something like, "The last one there's a rotten egg," turned, took three steps, and ran smack into a tree. I laughed so hard -- it was just like a cartoon -- that I nearly fell over. She wasn't hurt and the play went on without her even going to the house.
So in my mind she's this round-faced kid, with braids and freckles. I saw a picture of her on FB and, well, she's still got the freckles.
And I still have this mole on my cheek, and pretty much the same smile from the time I was a little girl. But I'm not thirty or forty. I'm nearly sixty and cannot tell you how weird this is.
I started wearing bifocal glasses when I was in my late forties. I've had arthritic knees for at least as long. I've had arthritis in the vertebrae in my lower back for about two years. My hair's been greying for at least ten years and I finished menopause five years or so ago.
But was I aging? Not in my mind. In my mind, I had the same body image that I had in my thirties, mirrors and clothes sizes notwithstanding. The thing that's really brought me to some sort of realization, oddly enough, is Facebook.
On Facebook, I'm friends with people I know because of my job, that I've worked with, that I've met in the last few years. but I'm also friends with a bunch of people that I've known since high school and before. I'm friends with a guy I've known since I was five and now I'm friends with a woman that grew up in the same garden apartment I did in Montclair, NJ. I've known her probably since I was seven or so, because she's a few years younger than I am.
There was a pack of about eight kids that played together. The age spread was about five years from the oldest to the youngest. I was probably in the older third and this woman, girl then, was in the younger third. I remember a couple of things about playing with her. Probably the thing I remember best, though not to my credit, was this time she was going to race off to the play yard. She yelled something like, "The last one there's a rotten egg," turned, took three steps, and ran smack into a tree. I laughed so hard -- it was just like a cartoon -- that I nearly fell over. She wasn't hurt and the play went on without her even going to the house.
So in my mind she's this round-faced kid, with braids and freckles. I saw a picture of her on FB and, well, she's still got the freckles.
And I still have this mole on my cheek, and pretty much the same smile from the time I was a little girl. But I'm not thirty or forty. I'm nearly sixty and cannot tell you how weird this is.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
More Daddy Grace than Martin Luther King
I have been reviewing the salaries of the top administrators of LGBT advocacy organizations. (It's part of my job that would be tedious to explain.) The EDs of the big orgs, you know the ones, are bringing home the six-figure salaries. If they get less, sooner or later they're going to be looking for a new, better paying gay-for-pay job.
This is part of the overall professionalization of non-profit and service jobs. Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that doing good work should mean living on bread and water and wearing sackcloth. I don't expect people to be Simone Weil. But when the cost of doing the work means paying huge salaries in this movement. I wonder about the return on investment.
We're possibly on the cusp of repealing DADT and maybe the trans-inclusive ENDA will get voted on before Congress scurries home for the summer and campaining. These are huge things. But was the motive force for these things the national LGBT organizations? It's hard to say.
More likely, it's the combination of a couple of things.
First the greater visibility of LGBT people (we're not so scarily other) and the increased sophistication of many Americans. This has come about because of a slow change in our culture. This change has taken place in one of the most conservative parts of the nation, the armed services. If the military has no objection to overturning DADT (and as far as I can tell, there's precious little resistance, high and low, except for some Pleistocene relics), then it's a change whose time has come.
Second, there's a center-left president in the White House who will sign the bills if they get to his desk.
Neither of these things is the result of X organization lobbying on Capitol Hill or schmoozing with elected officials. It was LGBT individuals, not organizations, meeting non-LGBT individuals, people knowing their lesbian neighbors or gay co-workers or transgender family members or bisexual friends. And the gays did not elect Obama. Not single handed any how.
When I think about Martin Luther King or Malcolm X (whose birthday it is today) I think they had comfortable lives. From the pictures, they had what pretty much look like middle-class African American homes from the middle of the last century. There wasn't a lot of money in social change then. There was (and will always be) a lot of money in selling people a story they want to believe. That's what Daddy Grace did and that's why lots of people gave him lots and lots of money.
To be fair, Daddy Grace also built houses and created a pension fund for elderly parishioners and ministers. And to be fair, the national LGBT organizations have done something in the struggle to social justice, but not nearly enough for the cost.
This is part of the overall professionalization of non-profit and service jobs. Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that doing good work should mean living on bread and water and wearing sackcloth. I don't expect people to be Simone Weil. But when the cost of doing the work means paying huge salaries in this movement. I wonder about the return on investment.
We're possibly on the cusp of repealing DADT and maybe the trans-inclusive ENDA will get voted on before Congress scurries home for the summer and campaining. These are huge things. But was the motive force for these things the national LGBT organizations? It's hard to say.
More likely, it's the combination of a couple of things.
First the greater visibility of LGBT people (we're not so scarily other) and the increased sophistication of many Americans. This has come about because of a slow change in our culture. This change has taken place in one of the most conservative parts of the nation, the armed services. If the military has no objection to overturning DADT (and as far as I can tell, there's precious little resistance, high and low, except for some Pleistocene relics), then it's a change whose time has come.
Second, there's a center-left president in the White House who will sign the bills if they get to his desk.
Neither of these things is the result of X organization lobbying on Capitol Hill or schmoozing with elected officials. It was LGBT individuals, not organizations, meeting non-LGBT individuals, people knowing their lesbian neighbors or gay co-workers or transgender family members or bisexual friends. And the gays did not elect Obama. Not single handed any how.
When I think about Martin Luther King or Malcolm X (whose birthday it is today) I think they had comfortable lives. From the pictures, they had what pretty much look like middle-class African American homes from the middle of the last century. There wasn't a lot of money in social change then. There was (and will always be) a lot of money in selling people a story they want to believe. That's what Daddy Grace did and that's why lots of people gave him lots and lots of money.
To be fair, Daddy Grace also built houses and created a pension fund for elderly parishioners and ministers. And to be fair, the national LGBT organizations have done something in the struggle to social justice, but not nearly enough for the cost.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
I Got Nothin'
Nothing much to say that is. I spent part of Mothers' Day with my sister, eating indifferent BBQ. But we're getting along much better and that's good.
I had some more thoughts about our dad. I was thinking about this argument I got into on Saturday night. I was thinking about music and Dionne Warwick sounds great to me now and how dismissive I was of her (considerable) talent when I was a teenager. I was thinking about how easy ear worms are acquired and how hard they are to get rid of, presently afflicted with Jerry Orbach's version of "Promises, Promises" from the cast recording back in 1964 or so. (What a good singer he was! )
Ideas and half-formed thoughts swirl around like dust bunnies and I think that I really need to sweep.
I had some more thoughts about our dad. I was thinking about this argument I got into on Saturday night. I was thinking about music and Dionne Warwick sounds great to me now and how dismissive I was of her (considerable) talent when I was a teenager. I was thinking about how easy ear worms are acquired and how hard they are to get rid of, presently afflicted with Jerry Orbach's version of "Promises, Promises" from the cast recording back in 1964 or so. (What a good singer he was! )
Ideas and half-formed thoughts swirl around like dust bunnies and I think that I really need to sweep.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Promissory Note - What We Learn
Every once in a while I buy some good salami. I make sandwiches and I think about my dad, who taught me to like strongly flavored things.
Salami
Sardines
Hot sausage
Tabasco sauce
Lapsang souchong tea
Strong mustard
He didn't sit me down and make me eat or drink these things. But because he was my dad and because I loved him, I tried them when I got a chance and I like these things too.
I probably inherited an ability to ingest spicy stuff without pain. Neither he or I seem to be super-tasters. But I learned by watching and remembering.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)