Janet Tom at San Francisco Village

Today, February 20, 2020, Janet Tom was interviewed at San Francisco Village.  She was very entertaining!

I've known and admired her for years, but I keep learning new things about her.  ''

Rachel Lanzeotti introduced her and intended to interview her, but Janet didn't need an interviewer.  (Credit should be given, nonetheless, to the very good questions that Rachel asked.)

Janet talked about her initial reaction to the call to announce she'd won an "I Love My Librarian" award.  She thought it was a crank call and didn't return it. Once she learned of the award, she was asked to keep it a secret for a couple of weeks and did.  Then her friends were calling to congratulate her, and she asked, "How did you know?" 

"We read the New York Times!" they replied

She talked about getting speakers for the library programs, and she commented on the terms used to define the roles of the librarians.  She, for example, is the "subject selector." 

"We have categories to confuse people," she said.    "You get a Masters Degree so you can say these words."

She is the subuec selector for health, 610-615.  She's glad she got the beginning of that section, which is prevention.  616-619 are the diseases themselves.

More on this tomorrow..


The attendees seemed as sharp as the women I so much admire in OWL. 

Last Night's Debate with Democratic Candidates--and Mandatory Voting

I have a friend who lives in Mexico, where he's allowed to vote for the full California ballot now but feels he should be allowed to vote on every issue since he's away and not well-informed.

I was touched that he thinks we who live in California are well-informed.

 In this morning's newspaper, I read about Marc Levine's proposal that we have mandatory voting in this state.  He said that since jury duty is mandatory, voting should be too, but that seems like a terrible analogy to me.  I'd say that if the jurists reached a verdict without first hearing testimony (say, the way the Senate did with Trump), that would be analogous to the voters' having to vote. The only way mandatory voting makes sense is to have mandatory education on the issues and candidates--and who's going to balance that?!

Speaking of education, that's what I hope to get from a panel I've helped organize for this Saturday,   "Making Sense of What's Happening at City College," which does prevent divergent views.  

I've gone to support numerous rallies, but I don't want this to be another one.  The "Progressives" I count myself among have been called "The Righteousness Mob," and I think we sometimes deserve that epithet.  We don't listen to people with views different from ours and we show contempt for the people who don't share our perspective.  

About Warren vs. Sanders:  Last night Warren made the accusation that, while Sanders' Medicare for All plan was a good start, "instead of explaining and bringing in more people to help, his campaign relentlessly attacks everyone who asks a question or tries to fill in details about how to actually make this work."

I have a conservative Democrat on the right of me at the Y every other morning, and I enjoy our conversations.  But he scoff's at Sanders' using Denmark as a model because Denmark has fewer than 6 million people, and the USA has 350 million.   I asked him, "Why can't something that works for 6 million people work for a much larger population?  Is our present system working so well for that number?"  One thing I know is that I don't know how to answer people whose views are very different from my own.  

Last night was a good night for Warren, whose comparison of Buttigieg's and Klobuchar's health plans  with  "a PowerPoint" and "A post-it" respectively was very witty.

Barbara Lane's column on "Books by walkers: a literary stroll"

I just wrote a friend about this:

I finally got around to reading Barbara Lane's column "Book by walkers:  a literary stroll," which alerted me to a book by Rebeccas Solnit, which I now have on Audible.  I love to walk, as I think you do, but I don't think they (Barbara Lane and Rebeccas Solnit) understand that a treadmill doesn't preclude walks out in nature.   Rebecca Solnit says that gyms "automobilized and suburbanized mind more comfortable in climate-controlled indoor space than outdoors, more comfortable with quantifiable and clearly defined activity than with seamless engagement of mind, body, and terrain to be found walking out of doors."

They're very different types of exercise.  What I like most about being on the treadmill is that I have two guys I like a lot to talk with as we begin our day--though Jerry is now going through very intense treatment for his second bout of cancer, so he isn't on my left this month.  I also like the fact that the treadmill gets me walking faster than I would on a walk outdoors, so it does more for the cardio-vascular.

Of course, there's no substitute for walking outdoors.  They're just really two very different forms of exercise, and I know I exert myself more during my hour at the gym than I do when I'm taking a walk.

Thank God it's only for an hour and every OTHER day.  I walk outdoors every day.

Rally and Women's March January 18, 2020

As I was saying on Facebook, I'm always grateful when rallies go beyond platitudes and chants, and I'm happy to say that I learned things at the Women's March rally yesterday (January 18), and of course it was a thrill hearing cast members of HAMILTON perform.

Cast members of Hamilton.

I'm going to post for a few days to cover some of what I learned at the rally, and forgive me for starting with the plight ot men, but one of the first signs I saw was this one:

Are these statistics true?  (We won't go into his motives for sharing these statistics at a Women's March.)

I wish I knew the name of the First Nation woman who sang at the beginning and spoke later.  More than one person acknowledged that we were on Ohlone land.

The MC was Kimberly Ellis the director of Emerge California,  She introduced the speakers, who began with Mayor London Breed, the first African-American mayor of SF, and one of only two female mayors.  Others who spoke were CCCarmen Chu,Saru Jayaraman, women representing faith activists, women representing disability and sexualilty, Malia Cohen, Shannon Watts (Fight Like a Mother--against guns), Teresa Mejia of the Women's Building.  I thought I heard the name Noemi Odai, but I can't find any reference to her online.  More on what I learned later.

Sneak Preview of the Mostly British Film Festival--and a Touching Anecdote

Janet Tom, illustrating one of the many reasons that she was a recent winner of the I Love My Librarian Award, introduced Ruthe Stein and Maxine EInhorn Wednesday night at a sneak preview of the Mostly British Film Festival, which has movies from "all the countries we've colonized," London-born Maxine explained.

We saw trailers from the films you see projected on the screen--all from the UK except "Extra Ordinary" from Ireland, but Maxine told us about others including ones from New Zealand and Australia.

Today a friend told me that by chance she'd met a woman who'd just come from this sneak preview and was raving about the two presenters and how interesting the films seemed but couldn't attend because of the death of her mother and her own illness, so she gave the program to Erika, who says she's going to attend a couple of the films "in honor" of this woman who so generously shared her enthusiasm and her program.

What's Happened to the Empire CineArts Theater at West Portal?

I used to love this theater, but something's gone wrong here!  Today I was in line to see "1917," and the line was so slow that even though I arrived several minutes before showtime, which means trailers for 10 minutes, I missed the trailers and the first part of the movie.  

Because they're now having people choose their seats, the process takes longer, and there's only one person in the the ticket booth.  Arriving late and in the dark, I couldn't find my seat until I remembered the flashlight on my iPhone.  If they're getting people in late in the dark, they should at least have an usher.

When I was with friends a couple of weeks ago, one of the theaters was so cold that it was difficult to focus on the film.  We complained afterwards and were told that they'd had a heating problem for a couple of months.  I suggested that they put up a sign to warn the theater-goers.  Today the manager told me they found out they were not allowed to put up a sign.  

Two women let the manager know that there was no toilet paper in the restroom, and she said she was sorry but there wasn't any more to put in there.  Walgreen's is just a block away.  I sympathize with those working at an understaffed,  mis-managed theater, but they need to be more pro-active, or else they need to put up warning signs whether they're allowed to or not!

Sheila Malkind Gets Well-Earned Recognition

Look at this great recogniztion for Sheila Malkind, founder and director of the Legacy Film Festival on Aging!

This Film Festival Is The Answer To Those “Okay, Boomer” Naysayers

This Film Festival Is The Answer To Those “Okay, Boomer” Naysayers Lois Alter Mark With movies about sex, cross dressing, love and loneliness, San Francisco's annual Legacy Film Festival On Aging...