Context
I answered the phone this afternoon and received a prerecorded invitation from my senator, David Vitter, to attend a town hall meeting. I cannot repeat it verbatim, but it went along the lines of, "I want to invite you to a town hall meeting to discuss important economic issues, including creating high-quality jobs for Louisiana, ending federal bailouts and cutting rampant federal spending . . . " At this point I hung up.
Commentary
Am I being unrealistically nostalgic, or didn't there use to be a time when "town hall" meant "Let's talk about issues and see how we want to resolve them," as opposed to "I already know the solution, I just want to get everyone together and tell them what it is"?
I'm not trying to be difficult. I recognize that I'm a liberal and Sen. Vitter is a Republican, so it's not necessarily realistic to expect that we will share political opinions in common. Moreover, he won the election so he has some assurance that the majority of Louisiana voters agree with his stand. So I have no problem with the idea that he's already made up his mind. It's the pretending that he's trying to get constituents together to gather feedback that bothers me.
What Senator Vitter is proposing is a rally, not a town hall meeting. He is up for reelection this year, so it's perfectly reasonable for him to have a rally to whip up support. But there's no need for him to invite me.
What did you hear today?
2/04/2010
I saw an irate message
Context
A few days ago I received a call from a library patron who was puzzled because she couldn't use our Overdrive service. After investigation, I let her know that was because she held a Green Gold card. These cards are issued to patrons whose home library is in a parish near ours and allow the bearer access to our physical resources, but not our electronic ones.
The patron was dismayed by this for two reasons:
1) The Overdrive service was the only reason she had applied for the card, so she could have saved herself a trip from Minden to Shreveport.
2) Her friend had applied for the same reason, and she wasn't being blocked.
I apologized for our mistake in not explaining the Green Gold restrictions better and, trying to cover all bases, asked the patron if she wanted to rat out her friend so I could block her. The patron said, "No." The next day I received a message from a fellow staff member letting me know who the "friend" was. I had not solicited this information, but I used it to go ahead and block the second woman.
Today this e-mail the friend's husband sent the message to the "support" link on the Overdrive website. Messages sent to this link go to an account that everyone in our department reads.
"Well it seems the rumor is true. We heard that even with the Green Card and a membership in the Shreve Library, we were going to be cut off. You see we live in Minden, and made 2 trips to the Shreve Library with the intent of joining to be able to download E-Books. This was addressed up front and approved and now we are shut off. I am really disappointed. You see we spend probably more money in Shreveport than we do in Minden so its not like we don't support your city. I served 20 years in the Air Force and I don't recall saying I would not help if Shreveport was bombed or in some sort of trouble. I served my country including Shreveport. If us checking out an E-Book puts your system in that much of a bind then God have mercy on your city. Its all about greed from the man on the street to the Mayor and President. Thank goodness I don't live and die for your perfect city. Oh yes, card #[redacted] is the account and good luck on your greed."
Commentary
I could of course make many, many comments about the e-mail message above, and I'd be lying if I said we didn't pass the message around and make several of those remarks this morning, to general hilarity.
However, I'm more interested in talking about my immediate response when I saw the message. I started thinking of several replies I wanted to make to the patron and I could feel my pulse racing right along with my brain. In other words, a fight or flight response (as is customary for me, I was leaning toward "fight").
This was irrational. First of all, I'm a religious pacifist (yes, I'm reusing links from previous entries, cope!). Also, under no conceivable set of circumstances was I facing a threat. Truthfully, the circumstances should have provoked no other response but laughter and pity, but there it is. I didn't behave violently, but my body wanted to. My pacifist principles only go so far; they don't completely change my makeup. In fact, the Bible says my subsequent snarkiness does constitute violence.
Where does that leave me? Mindful of how wrong my immediate reaction to a situation can be, for one thing. Glad to be a Christian for another. I can say, along with the apostle Paul, that the good I would do, I do not do (another version here). Some people may think of this as a cop-out; I think it's just a realistic assessment of how badly we need the grace and love of our Father.
What did you see today?
A few days ago I received a call from a library patron who was puzzled because she couldn't use our Overdrive service. After investigation, I let her know that was because she held a Green Gold card. These cards are issued to patrons whose home library is in a parish near ours and allow the bearer access to our physical resources, but not our electronic ones.
The patron was dismayed by this for two reasons:
1) The Overdrive service was the only reason she had applied for the card, so she could have saved herself a trip from Minden to Shreveport.
2) Her friend had applied for the same reason, and she wasn't being blocked.
I apologized for our mistake in not explaining the Green Gold restrictions better and, trying to cover all bases, asked the patron if she wanted to rat out her friend so I could block her. The patron said, "No." The next day I received a message from a fellow staff member letting me know who the "friend" was. I had not solicited this information, but I used it to go ahead and block the second woman.
Today this e-mail the friend's husband sent the message to the "support" link on the Overdrive website. Messages sent to this link go to an account that everyone in our department reads.
"Well it seems the rumor is true. We heard that even with the Green Card and a membership in the Shreve Library, we were going to be cut off. You see we live in Minden, and made 2 trips to the Shreve Library with the intent of joining to be able to download E-Books. This was addressed up front and approved and now we are shut off. I am really disappointed. You see we spend probably more money in Shreveport than we do in Minden so its not like we don't support your city. I served 20 years in the Air Force and I don't recall saying I would not help if Shreveport was bombed or in some sort of trouble. I served my country including Shreveport. If us checking out an E-Book puts your system in that much of a bind then God have mercy on your city. Its all about greed from the man on the street to the Mayor and President. Thank goodness I don't live and die for your perfect city. Oh yes, card #[redacted] is the account and good luck on your greed."
Commentary
I could of course make many, many comments about the e-mail message above, and I'd be lying if I said we didn't pass the message around and make several of those remarks this morning, to general hilarity.
However, I'm more interested in talking about my immediate response when I saw the message. I started thinking of several replies I wanted to make to the patron and I could feel my pulse racing right along with my brain. In other words, a fight or flight response (as is customary for me, I was leaning toward "fight").
This was irrational. First of all, I'm a religious pacifist (yes, I'm reusing links from previous entries, cope!). Also, under no conceivable set of circumstances was I facing a threat. Truthfully, the circumstances should have provoked no other response but laughter and pity, but there it is. I didn't behave violently, but my body wanted to. My pacifist principles only go so far; they don't completely change my makeup. In fact, the Bible says my subsequent snarkiness does constitute violence.
Where does that leave me? Mindful of how wrong my immediate reaction to a situation can be, for one thing. Glad to be a Christian for another. I can say, along with the apostle Paul, that the good I would do, I do not do (another version here). Some people may think of this as a cop-out; I think it's just a realistic assessment of how badly we need the grace and love of our Father.
What did you see today?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)