Runners and Readers

I had an interesting experience Sunday.

It was the Baton Rouge (Louisiana?) Marathon this weekend. I was asked to staff a table on Sunday morning. It was set up in the Welcome Center, right near where the runners picked up their checked gear after the race.

I shared space with two other folks from the Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism (the parent agency for the State Library of Louisiana). The other folks were from State Parks and from Retire Louisiana/Audubon Golf Trail. I was there promoting the Louisiana Book Festival (LBF). [The 11th Book Festival will be on November 1, 2014. The date has been set, the web site has wrap up information from the 10th Festival.]

I was the middle agency of the three. As we handed out information for each of our "projects" I was fascinated to see that most of the runners (and their families/friends) were not golfers and had very little interest in the golf information. However, a good number of them were interested in the Book Festival, and a significant proportion of them had at least heard of the LBF if not having attended it in the past.

There seems to be a larger overlap between runners and readers. Who knew? It occurs to me that this could be another segment to whom to promote libraries and reading.

Books Read 2013

Here is my list of books read during the past calendar year. This year was both heavy on non-fiction, and very heavily based on ARCs which I received. They are in reverse chronological order.

Books

Vanished: The sixty-year search for the missing men of World War II by Wil S. Hylton ARC

Storm Front: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford

"Spectacular Wickedness": New Orleans, Prostitution, and the Politics of Sex, 1897-1917 by Emily Epstein Landau [Dissertation for PhD, Yale University, 2005]

My Mother's Secret by J.L. Witterick ARC

Wilson by A. Scott Berg ARC

Drama High: The incredible true story of a brilliant teacher, a struggling town, and the magic of theater by Michael Sokolove ARC

The Dark Path: a memoir by David Schickler ARC

Confederate in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz

Sweet Thunder: A novel by Ivan Doig ARC

Critical Mass by Sara Paretsky ARC

The Black Country by Alex Grecian ARC

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker: A novel by Jennifer Chiaverini ARC

Farewell Dorothy Parker: A novel by Ellen Meister ARC

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls: A novel by Anton DiSclafani ARC

Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the world that made him by David Henry & Joe Henry ARC

W is for Wasted by Sue Grafton ARC

On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta by Jen Lin-Liu ARC

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hossein ARC

Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub ARC

The Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister ARC

The Bartenders Tale by Ivan Doig ARC

Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys ... by Jeanne Marie Laskas ARC

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott

The Nook

Wife 22: A Novel by Melanie Gideon

Four seasons in Rome : On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr

Becoming Normal by Mark Edick

The Science of single : One Woman's Grand Experiment in Modern Dating, Creating Chemistry, and Finding Love by Rachel Machacek

TracFone Duped Me: Locked Hardware with no warning

I feel like I have been duped. If this had happened to me when I lived in Connecticut, and when Richard
Blumental was still Attorney General, I know what I would have done. I would have gone to his office with my issue. (I think that he was an incredible public advocate for consumers and consumer rights.)

So here is the story. I went to Costa Rica. I knew from prior trips that international calls are expensive as is adding international calling service. Even with international calling service (at a monthly fee), you still pay for both every call made and received. I added international data and texting, but not calling. I did what folks traveling do, I bought an inexpensive phone to use, and then bought a SIM card in the country to use for local phone calls. The local SIM card was inexpensive and gave me a local phone number.

I made a mistake though. I bought a phone, which I thought was just a phone. It was a TracFone.

Nowhere on the packaging does it say it. Nowhere in the agreement of terms and conditions does it say it. It is locked and can ONLY be used with a TracFone SIM card. The physical handset has no markings saying it is TracFone. Nowhere. Not on the case, not on the battery, not on the rest of the guts of the phone. Nowhere. (Bad marketing, by the way.)

I thought I bought a Samsung phone which came with TracFone service.

So not true.

I wound up going to a store in Costa Rica and buying another phone (Nokia, by the way), which is what I will use from now on for international traveling. It worked fine out of the box, and was even charged when I bought it (unlike the TracFone).

I had a series of emails with tech services at TracFone which were entirely unsatisfactory. Of course, I could have been talking with a machine.

They may provide a useful service, and I know some folks who have used it. However, I found them to be totally deceptive in my dealings with them. I recommend you not use them.

On the Noodle Road -- a review

I am on a mailing list for advanced reader's copies of new books. Most of what I receive is fiction, but every once in a while another title slips in. This one really caught my interest:

    On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta by Jen Lin-Liu
    (publication date is 7/23....publisher page is here)

The author is a Chinese-American, raised in California and who now owns a cooking school in Beijing. While at a dinner in Italy, she began to wonder about the "age-old question" on the origin of noodles. Did Marco Polo really introduce the noodle from China to Italy?

This work is a little cultural anthropology, a little cooking skills, a little travel guide, a little meditation on the role of women and feminism. It is a delightful, eclectic mix of all of the above. At the time of her trip, she had recently married, and that is part of the rumination on the role of women in society and feminism.

Her trip was by surface transportation (for the most part - there was one hiatus where she flew back to Beijing, and then flew back to where she left off). Some of the trip is by train and car, but she also did some hiking, and some of the penultimate legs were by boat (ferry). Her trip took her across China, through several of the "-stans" into Iran and Turkey, and then to Greece and Italy.

I thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of this book. Especially at home, food is the province of women. In some of the countries she visited the role of women is strictly circumscribed. There are many societal implications. Several of the people she cooked with and learned from are women who do it because it is expected, not because they enjoy it. (I find that sad, but then again, I like to cook.) I gained insight that I did not expect about several of the areas she visited.

I did not cook any of the recipes, and even though I usually give away ARCs when I get them, I will keep this one for a bit to try some of the recipes.

What is my job? A question for Board members

I don't currently serve on a Board for any organizations, nor do I work for one. However, for much of adult life (certainly since 1985), I was intimately involved in Boards. I was both an employee for a Board, and in many cases served on Boards of other organizations either where I lived or in my professional life.

Actually, it was during that board service that I met Eli Mina. Eli is the current professional Parliamentarian employed by the the American Library Association. But, he is more than just a Parliamentarian. He helps groups to work effectively together, and is an insightful observer of organizational dynamics.

I subscribe to his e-newsletter, and would highly recommend it. There are also some great resources on his web site: http://www.elimina.com/

In the most recent newsletter he has this:

A corporate board member asked me this question: "Isn't my primary duty to the shareholders, to ensure their investments are protected and their dividends are maximized?" A similar question was raised by an elected municipal official: "Isn't my duty to vote as per the wishes of the citizens who elected me?" A third example is a Member of Parliament who, ahead of a vote on a contentious issue, said: "I have to go back to my riding [i.e. district] and find out how my constituents want me to vote."

I looked around on his web site and did not find this article (there is other great stuff...). The second paragraph is key. It is the concept that so many in governance on the larger scale seem to forget:

The above examples reflect a widespread misconception that the primary duty of elected officials is to please their constituents. In fact, the primary duty of elected officials is not to one constituency or another, but to the organization as a whole.

As a Board member, or representative, your job while acting on the Board is to consider the good of the organization as a whole. I just think what Congress could accomplish if they were to act this way. Now, this still let's people disagree about the idea, but would mean that the discourse would be different.

Here are a couple of the concluding paragraphs:

And what about that Member of Parliament? His/her duty is to the country as a whole and not exclusively to constituents back home. Basing one's vote solely on their preference would politicize the process (i.e.: develop perceptions that political leaders will do anything to appease voters in order to boost their re-election prospects). It may ultimately be unfair to the country as a whole.
The above comments mean that elected decision makers who perform their roles correctly (i.e.: placing the organization's interests ahead of narrow interests) can become targets of harsh criticisms by their constituents: "You did not keep your campaign promises" or "You capitulated and did not stand up for us" or "You can be sure we'll campaign against you at the next election." Being punished and chastised for doing your job correctly is not fun. This can make it feel very lonely in elected positions.

How can elected officials do their jobs correctly while coping with abuse and personal attacks? The typical advice is to develop a "thick skin" and not be swayed by criticism that may arise from widespread misconceptions about the roles of elected officials.

Can this problem be addressed differently? Yes, possibly by educating constituents, electors and shareholders, and by making them aware of the complexity of the work of elected officials and the fact that their duty to the organization as a whole must come first.
In an optimal setting, constituents will adjust their expectations and abandon the culture of personal entitlement. Given the prominence of the culture of entitlement, eradicating it would require sustained educational efforts by elected leaders. Such efforts would be a good investment that will strengthen the foundation and the backbone of your organization or community.

While ALA Council and the EB get bashed in some circles, I have seen much more of a move towards the healthier behavior of considering what is good for the organization rather than what helps the individual.