Why would you?

Every now and then I will remember something that an acquaintance said that just bugged me, perhaps irrationally.

I am pretty great at bargain shopping. I have a good memory for what standard prices are, I stock up on perishables when the prices are good, and I know what things can be used together so looking at an ad gives me meal ideas where I can take advantage of the sales. 

Naturally, part of that is coupons. I don't use them on a reality show level (I know someone who has, and it wouldn't fit our needs), but they are an important part of getting the best deals.

The annoying thing was this person casually saying how she's never used coupons.

Well good for you! I mean, having been coddled by your family growing up, then marrying a class above and getting spoiled by them too, and with your tendency to give up on things when they get too onerous, why would you bother with coupons?

I suppose that sends a little resentful (it might be), but the issue at the time was the complete lack of connection to how it might be important or meaningful in any way. I think she is spoiled, but not because of what she has had as much as her not showing any understanding of or interest in what other people deal with or even acknowledgment of her own privilege. It is possible to gain understanding of other experiences with some effort, but there are no signs of that effort. I have a really hard time respecting that. If nothing else, I think it limits her capacity for gratitude for what she has.

Now, for another story that may seem unrelated!

Among the people who were calling for Biden's resignation, but only so they could get their candidate of choice, was actor George Clooney. A big part of his motivation seems to have been something that he took as a snub, though that sounds like it was blown out of proportion. Those Hollywood egos, right? Regardless, after sabotaging the incumbent and the new candidate against an absolute monster, what did Clooney do after the monster won? He moved to France!

This is simply not an option for most people.

I would like to take this time to remind those concerned about Palestinian lives that Palestinian people were begging us not to elect Trump. This did not move American leftists to get behind Biden or Harris, swearing that there was no difference between the parties. 

There is a lot that is wrong with that, including stunning hypocrisy, but there will probably be a different post for that. 

I think the better point to make right now is that when we say "listen to Black women" a big part of that is that with misogynoir, Black women are subject to racism, anti-Blackness, and misogyny. They don't have a lot of defenses against the most horrible influences in our world. By necessity they have to be aware of them. That increased understanding gives them insight that is important for people with more defenses too.

It doesn't mean that some don't have more money and more connections or that you can't find any Black women encouraging people to vote against their own interests, but in general, they have more skin in the game than the millionaire actor so they are more aware of potential consequences on everyone.

As I work on my list of people to never trust again, it is notable how many of them were born into money. 

No, they have never had to clip coupons. Yes, they could indeed move to France if they felt that was best.

It doesn't automatically make them unaware, but it certainly gives them the option.

There is a certain shielding from consequences that goes beyond leaving them uninformed, but sadly seems to invest them with a sense of superiority. They are sure they know better, despite knowing much less.

So when they are pushing certain candidates and ideologies it gives them the freedom to be monumentally wrong with amazing confidence and scorn, where they will just be stunned at what a bad person you are for not acknowledging their rightness and voting as they are telling you to. You must listen to them!

But why would you? 

Incrementalism

Yes, I am thinking about politics here, but the example I am giving is not really political.

Having completed school now, while my main priority needs to be job hunting, there is also a lot of catching up to do on other things. 

Finishing up the last of school required time spent on details where I just had to put some things off. They were also important, but needed time I could not give them.

One of those was an issue with my mother's care costs. I had mentioned it earlier, but there was something that I thought I could help, if I could only get the right answer.

I got bounced around a lot on the phones trying to get that right answer. I decided the only remedy was to go down to the office, but I could not commit to that until yesterday.

There was not someone there at that time who could talk to me. They suggested I might have better luck on the phones, but I assured them that was not the case. We arranged for someone to call me later that day.

Now, part of someone being available at that time was a matter of expertise; this is someone who can give you the right answer. In fact, the person who called me was knowledgeable on the topic and I got the information that I needed.

I also learned that a lot of the information I had gotten previously was wrong. This whole part of the equation had been unnecessary, except that the actual process that I was supposed to have done back then was ridiculous. Maybe the reason so few people understand it is that they are trying to impose logic on a process where it can only fail. I've had that problem myself.

I was able to get it confirmed that the way things are set up now should not impose problems further down the road, but there are some other things that I need to look into where the correct source has not been helpful in the past.

This is still progress. I am ahead of where I was.

That's how it is for a lot of these things. This time you wait on hold. That time you leave a message. This time you do get a call back but the next time you don't and you have to start over.

I didn't go until Tuesday because I was trying to resolve three other things Monday. One was resolved and one is supposed to get me a callback, though two days later I am not optimistic about that one.

For the third I was locked out of a web site. Even though the person I was talking to told me I was not locked out, she eventually did agree that I was and got me in. However, it did not resolve one specific area of the system, and I needed to call on that today. 

That one, at least, is completely resolved now (and would not have been an issue if I had not had to change my phone number in the first place, but these things happen).

Yes, bureaucracy is a problem here, but it is a part of life that there are things that you can't get all done at once.

It requires patience and persistence -- sometimes more than the people who need it have -- but you just have to keep going, being glad for the progress that there is and keeping sight of the progress that is still needed.    

I will also acknowledge that part of this is due to my economic class (which may make it more political). 

People with more money never have to deal with a lot of this. There are some things about that which end up being pretty important. 

Animal rescue infighting

Update for the week: I did complete my Master's degree and my mother is still alive, though there are signs that our time is winding down.

Among the things I have done to try and prepare for that was drafting an obituary.

I last mentioned that in January, I think. It's been a long haul. 

Part of that is second-guessing yourself. The part that has given me the most trouble has been the "in lieu of flowers" part. 

I don't even know if anyone would want to send anything, but if they did, I currently have Felines First and the Aloha Community Library Association: 

https://www.facebook.com/FelinesFirst

https://www.wccls.org/using-library/member-libraries/aloha-community-library

They were part of making some of her time with dementia better, though there have been many different phases. 

I did think about charities specific to dementia, but I couldn't decide which one and these are both small groups that don't get a lot of attention.

What might seem like a glaring omission to some is the lack of any greyhound groups. Those dogs were an important part of her life, as were the people that she volunteered with and dog sat for. 

What I have in the obituary is that the organization that she worked with disbanded, which is true. After greyhound racing ended in Oregon, Oregon Greyhound Association stayed around until every greyhound that either raced in Oregon or was born in Oregon (or both) was placed. 

That telling also leaves out the group before. 

There were many different adoption groups, basically sorted by region. There was another one that she worked in. Most of our dogs were adopted through them, and most of the volunteering and most of the friends happened through them. 

A new couple came in to that group from out of state. They had done a lot of rescue work so they came in with people kind of impressed, though I can't help but feel like their money was a factor. 

I am not naming the organization or people here, but I promise you that there are people around who would know what and whom immediately.

The new couple started taking over, alienating a lot of people we liked.

Some left and never came back. Some got away from greyhounds, but that's why Mom went to OGA. Our last dog came through them, but the numbers were going down already. They served their purpose. 

The other group still exists and I have feelings about them. 

I don't think they intended to wreak the devastation they did. Maybe there were certain people that they would have wanted gone, but I think in general they just wanted to do things their way and felt justified in doing so; they were so obviously superior.

Having known many people who work with animal rescue and adoption, none of them are ever surprised by this story. That problem is in no way exclusive to greyhounds.

To be fair, there were issues before. I knew people who had been in the group but left previously due to disagreements, again, where everyone on either side felt right.

There were disagreements about whether to be against racing or for it. If you were for it you could still disagree on whether that was because racing wasn't really that bad and look at what loving dogs it makes or because it was evil but you can't alienate the people doing it if you want to have access to the dogs so you have to put up with it.

There were passionate disagreements about proper care and feeding of dogs. I knew some people angry because their dogs were called fat and others pushed out after being called abusive because their dogs were so thin, but also sometimes those dogs had health issues where it was not whether or not they were getting enough food. 

I don't think there was ever anyone who didn't love the dogs; how can you not love them? But there were sure people who didn't love each other. Some could be petty or pushy or resentful, but they could be kind, too.

We saw it all, sometimes in the same people.

This problem is in no way exclusive to animal rescue. 

Late Pride Month continues: August quotes

I can totally see how this might not seem like a continuation, since the only post previous was almost a month ago:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/09/late-pride-month-augusts-daily-songs.html 

There has just been a lot going on.

As it is, I have mostly read the books that I intended to this time around. I just requested one that I had not previously known about. Matt Herron, the photographer from yesterday's post... I was trying to find more information on him. It turns out he was the photographer for a book on the AIDS quilt, which inspired a documentary I already watched, that was connected to another book... anyway, this is a good time to go over quotes.

I have a lot of affection for many of the people here. Audre Lorde, who has the first and last quotes, is such a good writer, with so much courage... it was easy to quote her twice.

However, the quote that speaks most to my heart is from August 6th, but Nathan Lane:

"I have to accept the fact that, no matter what I do, it's going to annoy someone." 

Being annoying has been a deep fear of mine for a long time.

There are reasons for that and I have come a long way, but there is still an underlying concern. Now when I worry about it, it is mostly because there is something that people won't want to hear that still needs to be said.

I found this quote because I am trying so hard this year to lift up marginalized voices. Now, the people I quote generally have some fame, perhaps making them seem less marginalized, but no amount of celebrity erases homophobia or racism or sexism, even if it does provide some shielding.

And I am very privileged in some ways, being white, straight, and cis, even if my gender, economic class, and body size hit on other prejudices.

Remembering others -- especially in the realm of diversity, equity, and inclusion -- may indeed be annoying to others.

I can accept that.

Thanks Nathan! 

Quotes

8/1 "When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak." -- Audre Lorde

8/2 "Change is not a threat to your life, but an invitation to live." -- Adrienne Rich

8/3 "Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it." -- Bayard Rustin

8/4 “It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” -- James Baldwin

8/5 "Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot." -- Truman Capote

8/6 "I have to accept the fact that, no matter what I do, it's going to annoy someone." -- Nathan Lane

8/7 "I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread." -- Langston Hughes

8/8 "Be yourself; everyone else is taken." -- Oscar Wilde

8/9 "Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you." -- Walt Whitman

8/10 "Whatever one loves most is beautiful." -- Sappho

8/11 "The Moral Majority supports legislators who oppose abortions but also oppose child nutrition and day care. From their perspective, life begins at conception and ends at birth." -- Barney Frank

8/12 "All the miles of a hard road are worth a moment of true happiness." -- Arnold Lobel

8/13 "Inside all of us is... hope. Inside all of us is... fear. Inside all of us is... adventure. Inside all of us is a wild thing." -- Maurice Sendak

8/14 "Life is so much bigger, grander, higher, and wider than we allow ourselves to think." -- Queen Latifah

8/15 "You will know you're old when you cease to be amazed." -- Noel Coward

8/16 "The only thing worse than human ignorance is human pride in that ignorance." -- George Takei

8/17 "It is my intention to live an authentic life of compassion and integrity and action." -- Zachary Quinto

8/18 "Be honest about what you see, get out of the way and let the story reveal itself." -- Anderson Cooper

8/19 "I really believe in trying to increase the amount of useful information in the world and in being accurate in the sense that you can take what I say to the bank, even if you disagree with me." -- Rachel Maddow

8/20 "You have no control over other people's taste, so focus on staying true to your own." -- Tim Gunn

8/21 "You can't please everybody. There's that old saying that there's no sure formula for success, but the only sure fire formula for failure is to try to please everyone. You're not going to do that." -- Matt Bomer

8/22 "I believe that acting in any medium is the same thing, it's discovering the truth in where you are." -- Victor Garber

8/23 "We don't deliberately set out to offend. Unless we feel it's justified." -- Graham Chapman

8/24 "Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense." -- Gertrude Stein

8/25 "But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself." -- Rachel Carson

8/26 "There is nothing that is comparable to it, as satisfactory or as thrilling, as gathering the vegetables one has grown." -- Alice B. Toklas

8/27 "Black women have had to develop a larger vision of our society than perhaps any other group. They have had to understand white men, white women, and black men. And they have had to understand themselves. When black women win victories, it is a boost for virtually every segment of society." -- Angela Davis

8/28 "We are your daughters, your sisters, your sons, your nurses, your mechanics, your athletes, your police, your politicians, your fathers, your doctors, your soldiers, your mothers. We live with you, care for you, help you, protect you, teach you, love you, and need you. All we ask is that you let us. We are no different. We want to serve, like you. Need love, like you. Feel pain, like you. And we deserve justice, like you." -- Margarethe Cammermeyer

8/29 "Maybe if people started to listen, history would stop repeating itself." -- Lily Tomlin

8/30 "I love the fact that I can make people happy, in any form. Even if it’s just an hour of their lives, if I can make them feel lucky or make them feel good, or bring a smile to a sour face, that to me is worthwhile." -- Freddie Mercury

8/31 "Tomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone; who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy." -- Audre Lorde

 

Where it leads

Our final stop in Cincinnati was the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

It was last because it was inside on the rain day and because they are open until 5; the other places closed at 4. (All of this will be covered on the travel blog, over several posts.)

Starting with Taft and ending with the Freedom Center was not planned, but I think it worked well to give a frame to our trip.

On to the Freedom Center!

It is a very good museum, but it can be heavy. 

They recommend that you watch a brief introductory film, then start at the top and work your way down. At the top, the first exhibit I looked at was Witness to the Journey: Matt Herron and the Deep South, 1965.

The first picture you see is one Herron did not take, where he is being chased by a cop. Herron is white, but he was documenting things that the white power structure did not want shown. I was not familiar with him, but I did start thinking about Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, Viola Liuzzo, and James Reeb. (Many of the photos were from Selma.) What Herron did was dangerous and it was important.

Of course there were pictures of Martin and Coretta King, but there was also Ralph Abernathy and John Lewis, who hold places in my heart, and James Bevel who was an abuser but was there and is immediately recognizable. 

There is a lot of reading and watching that has embedded it into my memory; all of the memories were flowing there.

Then there were other exhibits on modern slavery and on the Underground Railroad and slavery of that time. 

There were thoughts and memories regarding the Underground Railroad, but there was less knowledge on my part of the modern slavery.

I want to say there is more urgency on it, with people needing help now. I hesitate to say that, because one problem with the current state of things is that so few people are willing to learn the lessons of the past. If there was more connection to not just the wrongness of American chattel slavery, but also connecting of how and why it happened, maybe we would have gotten better by now.

I will obviously be writing more about that. For now I will just reiterate that for all of the undercurrent of greed, with people who already have resources wanting to exploit the labor of others so they can have more, while all the time they will insist that they are doing the exploited a favor, and that when the exploited resist it is because they are lazy and the real hard workers are the exploiters... for all of that...

It only works because there are so many people who will be satisfied with feelings of superiority and hate.

They are being exploited too. Not as badly, but way more stupidly. 

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/02/black-history-month-2011.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/02/black-history-month-sharing-week-3.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/02/selma-emotional-impact.html 

What they didn't tell us

We started our first full day in Cincinnati at the Taft National Historic site. 

That was the family home purchased by Taft's father, then added on to while the family was still there, becoming rented as apartments, and after many twists and turns becoming part of the National Park Service.

It wasn't our big priority; just something we thought we should do while we were there. A schedule that was initially based solely on proximity and efficiency had to be adjusted for weather; that's how we ended up there first. 

Still, it inspired a lot of thoughts. 

In AP History, in addition to the regular textbook there were some printouts with anecdotes about each president up to that time (1989). Anecdotes being what they are, a lot of what I remember most strongly comes from there.

I am mad about those stories, which is really only possible because of additional reading. 

Mainly what I recall from then about Taft was him being fat (what is most commonly remembered about him) and that he tried to compete with Teddy Roosevelt's bull moose (and maybe the teddy bear) with a Wally Possum. 

Also, I believe I remember from then that he was much happier as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court than as president. 

Some interesting facts I learned at the site were that he was offered a Supreme Court position earlier. He turned that down, along with other good career moves, because it would have meant not finishing things that he started. He was known for integrity and responsibility.

In addition, although they did mention the people of the Philippines growing to love the "gentle giant" when he was serving there, there was also this tidbit that he would start each morning with a four mile walk to his office. Yes, he was a big dude, but the prevailing memory lacks some nuance.

What really got to me was how the information there interacted with a book I read ten years ago:

1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs -- The Election that Changed the Country by James Chace (2004)

Books about elections are often really interesting because they go over the forces working in the country at the time and how the people process them. 

I did not come away from it learning a lot about Taft; just the basic conflicts. Then, time passes and experience accrues. I found myself here, on vacation, getting really angry with Roosevelt.

Okay, Taft is governing as his own person, not the sequel to you. You don't like that so you become a primary challenger and lose. Instead of just accepting that, then you form a third party and split the Republican vote, handing the country over to that racist Democrat Woodrow Wilson. 

(Yes, this was back when it still made sense to call the Republicans "the party of Lincoln." That time is long gone.)

I don't know how proud Roosevelt was of inviting Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House; the pushback he got caused him to be much more discreet about his racial progressivism after that. I don't doubt that he still harbored some racist beliefs, and there are ways in which that would have made it to work with Washington than some other potential figures of the time. However, Roosevelt did seem to want to improve things for Black Americans, at least in the South, and what did he do?

He handed things to Woodrow Wilson who resegregated the federal workforce:

https://www.govexec.com/federal-news/2015/11/when-woodrow-wilson-segregated-federal-workforce/123913/  

Equality, always a struggle, lost ground. 

One of the other anecdotes I remember from that collection was about Wilson, where he was so excited about the film The Birth of a Nation that he called it history written with lightning.

Now, I have seen an article debunking that:

https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/2014/07/01/woodrow-wilsons-unintentional-rave-for-the-birth-of-a-nation/

The author of that may be right, but there are enough other signs of racism that it doesn't do much to help Wilson's image.

Here's the other thing; I remember that line sticking with me, and wondering if maybe -- with film still being a relatively new medium -- maybe that just meant he was amazed by the motion picture or if Wilson was specifically applauding the racism. As I learned more about his presidential "achievements" I felt pretty certain he was applauding the racism.

What I don't remember is getting any context for the quote. 

If we are supposed to be getting to know the presidents better, the whole thing was kind of lacking, as I remember it, but they sure could have mentioned a lot more about the racism and not just with Wilson.

I say this as someone who really liked the teacher, whom I know did not set the curriculum so this is not blaming him. Still, I see how much the Lost Cause crept in, and how things that were unjustifiable were glossed over, and we were studying at the accelerated rate!

I knew that we were not getting everything because there was not enough time for that, but we missed so much of the core foundation. That lack of understanding about the greed and racism and all of those factors interacting is still causing destruction today, and in very similar ways.

Sure, any time you try and correct that, there is a lot of pushback and misusing of terms and outright lies, but it's important and we need to do better.

Which is pretty crucial for the last place we visited in Cincinnati.  

HallZooween at the Cincinnati Zoo

I just got back from vacation.  

There is some catching up to do, but I thought I should incorporate some of my time on vacation, separate from the travel blog.

This is partly because there were some deep thoughts that relate, but also for fun.

The Cincinnati Zoo had great Halloween decorations, but the travel blog post will probably focus on the animals and terrain.

So, why not have a post about that?

Here we are at the start of October, a month I love largely, but not solely, because of Halloween.

I was a little surprised at the title; "Howloween" or "ZooBoo" are a lot more common in my experience.

Well, variety is the spice of life.

One that note, not everything was pumpkins. There were also spiders, ghosts, candy corn, and ghostly jellyfish.

However, a key focus was on pumpkins, with local artists being invited to decorate over 5000 of them.

I actually saw a few carvers are work, so the process appears to be ongoing. As it is, there was also some painting and some very creative ways of making the art.

 Sometimes there were themes, like snakes and turtles outside the reptile house.

 My personal favorite was this homage to Over the Garden Wall and that captivating scene from episode 2, "Hard Times at the Huskin' Bee."

There were definitely over places with Halloween decorations on our trip, but this was easily the most impressive and memorable.

(And we went to Holiday World.)

I do have a tendency to be more serious, and with good reason, but you have to share the good times too.