Too much bike news

On 07-17-2013 00:05, Frank Krygowski wrote:
More on that "society in which they existed" thing: A few years ago, a colleague recommended I read a book about helping people rise out of poverty. It claimed to explain aspects of culture common among low-income people in the U.S.

Sounds like Ruby Payne's book. I recommend it. Actually, she has two
but they are 80% the same. One is aimed specifically at educators: "A
Framework for Understanding Poverty." The other is titled "What Every
Church Member Should Understand about Poverty" but really has no
specific church connection.

--
Wes Groleau

I've noticed lately that the paranoid fear of computers becoming
intelligent and taking over the world has almost entirely disappeared
from the common culture. Near as I can tell, this coincides with
the release of MS-DOS.
— Larry DeLuca

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Tuesday, July 16, 2013 8:23:44 PM UTC-4, John B. wrote:

Years ago there was plan to get jobs for unemployed persons in

Detroit. The group conducting the plan went to the car manufacturers

and got them to create non-skilled positions and then tried to fit the

unemployed into these positions. At that time the unemployed in

Detroit was into the 3rd generation.



The plan failed as the unemployed had no conception of "a day's work

for a day's pay" and in addition a steady job was not seen as a plus

in the society in which they existed.

More on that "society in which they existed" thing: A few years ago, a colleague recommended I read a book about helping people rise out of poverty. It claimed to explain aspects of culture common among low-income people in the U.S.

One important example was that, supposedly, they often value relationships more than money or material things. Sounds good, in a way. But there was this example of unintended consequences. (This is from memory, so forgive any detail mistakes.)

One young woman had, after a life of poverty, gotten into a program that helped her get her GED and find a job, something like a school secretary, IIRC. Anyway, she was making money, but had debts. Somehow, one person working with her found out that her family didn't even have a refrigerator. This had the effect of wasting a lot of her food money.

Word got around, and the other workers all chipped in and raised enough money to give the woman a refrigerator - a _very_ nice gesture. But soon, she was missing work for a while. And when she returned, they found out she no longer had the refrigerator.

She had sold it, and used the money to take her family on a little vacation. It was far more important for her to do something nice for her family (even though it was temporary), than to have a refrigerator, even though the refrigerator would save her money in the long run.

So, widely differing value systems can mess with the best of intentions.


"In the sphere of material things giving means being rich. Not he who
/has/ much is rich, but he who /gives/ much. The hoarder who is
anxiously worried about losing something is, psychologically speaking,
the poor, impoversihed man, regardless of how much he has. whoever is
capable of giving of himself is rich. He experiences himself as one
who can confer of himself to others. Only one who is deprived of all
that goes beyond the barest of necessitites for subsistence would be
incapable of enjoying the act of giving material things. But daily
experience shows that what a person considers the minimal necessities
depends as much on his character as it depends on his actual possess-
ions. It is well known that the poor are more willing to give than
the rich. Nevertheless, poverty beyond a certain point may make it
impossible to give, and is so degrading, not only because of the
suffering it causes directly, but because of the fact that it deprives
the poor of the joy of giving."

"The most inportant sphere of giving, however, is not of material
things, but lies in the specifically human realm."

On 7/19/2013 10:48 AM, Dan wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On Tuesday, July 16, 2013 8:23:44 PM UTC-4, John B. wrote:

Years ago there was plan to get jobs for unemployed persons in

Detroit. The group conducting the plan went to the car manufacturers

and got them to create non-skilled positions and then tried to fit the

unemployed into these positions. At that time the unemployed in

Detroit was into the 3rd generation.



The plan failed as the unemployed had no conception of "a day's work

for a day's pay" and in addition a steady job was not seen as a plus

in the society in which they existed.

More on that "society in which they existed" thing: A few years ago, a colleague recommended I read a book about helping people rise out of poverty. It claimed to explain aspects of culture common among low-income people in the U.S.

One important example was that, supposedly, they often value relationships more than money or material things. Sounds good, in a way. But there was this example of unintended consequences. (This is from memory, so forgive any detail mistakes.)

One young woman had, after a life of poverty, gotten into a program that helped her get her GED and find a job, something like a school secretary, IIRC. Anyway, she was making money, but had debts. Somehow, one person working with her found out that her family didn't even have a refrigerator. This had the effect of wasting a lot of her food money.

Word got around, and the other workers all chipped in and raised enough money to give the woman a refrigerator - a _very_ nice gesture. But soon, she was missing work for a while. And when she returned, they found out she no longer had the refrigerator.

She had sold it, and used the money to take her family on a little vacation. It was far more important for her to do something nice for her family (even though it was temporary), than to have a refrigerator, even though the refrigerator would save her money in the long run.

So, widely differing value systems can mess with the best of intentions.


"In the sphere of material things giving means being rich. Not he who
/has/ much is rich, but he who /gives/ much. The hoarder who is
anxiously worried about losing something is, psychologically speaking,
the poor, impoversihed man, regardless of how much he has. whoever is
capable of giving of himself is rich. He experiences himself as one
who can confer of himself to others. Only one who is deprived of all
that goes beyond the barest of necessitites for subsistence would be
incapable of enjoying the act of giving material things. But daily
experience shows that what a person considers the minimal necessities
depends as much on his character as it depends on his actual possess-
ions. It is well known that the poor are more willing to give than
the rich. Nevertheless, poverty beyond a certain point may make it
impossible to give, and is so degrading, not only because of the
suffering it causes directly, but because of the fact that it deprives
the poor of the joy of giving."

"The most inportant sphere of giving, however, is not of material
things, but lies in the specifically human realm."


+1
Much wisdom; who wrote that?

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

AMuzi writes:

On 7/19/2013 10:48 AM, Dan quoted:

snip


"In the sphere of material things giving means being rich. Not he who
/has/ much is rich, but he who /gives/ much. The hoarder who is
anxiously worried about losing something is, psychologically speaking,
the poor, impoversihed man, regardless of how much he has. whoever is
capable of giving of himself is rich. He experiences himself as one
who can confer of himself to others. Only one who is deprived of all
that goes beyond the barest of necessitites for subsistence would be
incapable of enjoying the act of giving material things. But daily
experience shows that what a person considers the minimal necessities
depends as much on his character as it depends on his actual possess-
ions. It is well known that the poor are more willing to give than
the rich. Nevertheless, poverty beyond a certain point may make it
impossible to give, and is so degrading, not only because of the
suffering it causes directly, but because of the fact that it deprives
the poor of the joy of giving."

"The most inportant sphere of giving, however, is not of material
things, but lies in the specifically human realm."


+1
Much wisdom; who wrote that?


Erich Fromm.

(So sorry - I really should have attributed the quote.)

Digging through a big box of books yesterday, I came upon it -
one book with an intriguing title, "Bridges Not Walls" (3rd
edition, edited by John Stewart). More than a good title and
'70s-ish look, its very condition (obviously read more than
any of the other books, and at the same time well cared for)
said this was something special - treasured.

And it is. I've only started reading it, but I won't ever be
the same. Not so much that the subject matter is revelatory,
as its collected and distilled brilliance. It's a treasure
chest of assorted gems appreciated first by the editor - a
smart fellow in his own right, then this copy similarly
appreciated by another educator in the field. It's going to
open entire avenues of exploration and reflection for me now.

I've seen and considered plenty of texts on interpersonal
communication; this big box was chock full of them; but
this... oh, this!

It never ends - the learning, the discovery.

Suddenly cosmic coincidences are lining up again. Cross my
heart, I had taken a break from editing this very post, was
pondering all the mediocre (and worse) "educational" material
in the world and how I am sometimes labeled, "unwilling to
learn" (when perhaps I am just discriminating), when I walked
past the TV and heard Alex Trebek give the Final Jeopardy answer
- *another* intriguing book title: "A Confederacy of Dunces".

On my way to the computer to look it up, thinking about how
"Bridges... " had rescued me from reading "The Hunger Games",
picked up because it was the only thing laying around that I
hadn't read that was even a little interesting (I felt like
maybe I had its summary pegged in the first page or two:
"rough burlap"), and now here was *another* book that piqued
my curiosity and maybe we'd have to go to the bookstore and
maybe there I'd find a copy of "Don Quixote" which has been
at the top of my list to read, when this jumped off the
Wikipedia page for Confederacy of Dunces:

"Ignatius Jacques Reilly is something of a modern Don Quixote"

Yeah, definitely better to go to the bookstore.

(Frank, you know that thing you do that makes people not like
you sometimes? I heartily recommend you put down the charts
and graphs and ride over to the library to check out "Bridges
Not Walls".)

To bring this around to the OT topic that ISTR it was, there's
a line in the "Bridges" book - not 100% sure whose words but
I think probably Martin Buber:

"I have never known a young person to be irretrievably bad."

ROTHSCHILD

Dan wrote:
AMuzi writes:

On 7/19/2013 10:48 AM, Dan quoted:

snip


"In the sphere of material things giving means being rich. Not he who
/has/ much is rich, but he who /gives/ much. The hoarder who is
anxiously worried about losing something is, psychologically speaking,
the poor, impoversihed man, regardless of how much he has. whoever is
capable of giving of himself is rich. He experiences himself as one
who can confer of himself to others. Only one who is deprived of all
that goes beyond the barest of necessitites for subsistence would be
incapable of enjoying the act of giving material things. But daily
experience shows that what a person considers the minimal necessities
depends as much on his character as it depends on his actual possess-
ions. It is well known that the poor are more willing to give than
the rich. Nevertheless, poverty beyond a certain point may make it
impossible to give, and is so degrading, not only because of the
suffering it causes directly, but because of the fact that it deprives
the poor of the joy of giving."

"The most inportant sphere of giving, however, is not of material
things, but lies in the specifically human realm."


+1
Much wisdom; who wrote that?


Erich Fromm.

(So sorry - I really should have attributed the quote.)

Digging through a big box of books yesterday, I came upon it -
one book with an intriguing title, "Bridges Not Walls" (3rd
edition, edited by John Stewart). More than a good title and
'70s-ish look, its very condition (obviously read more than
any of the other books, and at the same time well cared for)
said this was something special - treasured.

And it is. I've only started reading it, but I won't ever be
the same. Not so much that the subject matter is revelatory,
as its collected and distilled brilliance. It's a treasure
chest of assorted gems appreciated first by the editor - a
smart fellow in his own right, then this copy similarly
appreciated by another educator in the field. It's going to
open entire avenues of exploration and reflection for me now.

I've seen and considered plenty of texts on interpersonal
communication; this big box was chock full of them; but
this... oh, this!

It never ends - the learning, the discovery.

Suddenly cosmic coincidences are lining up again. Cross my
heart, I had taken a break from editing this very post, was
pondering all the mediocre (and worse) "educational" material
in the world and how I am sometimes labeled, "unwilling to
learn" (when perhaps I am just discriminating), when I walked
past the TV and heard Alex Trebek give the Final Jeopardy answer
- *another* intriguing book title: "A Confederacy of Dunces".

On my way to the computer to look it up, thinking about how
"Bridges... " had rescued me from reading "The Hunger Games",
picked up because it was the only thing laying around that I
hadn't read that was even a little interesting (I felt like
maybe I had its summary pegged in the first page or two:
"rough burlap"), and now here was *another* book that piqued
my curiosity and maybe we'd have to go to the bookstore and
maybe there I'd find a copy of "Don Quixote" which has been
at the top of my list to read, when this jumped off the
Wikipedia page for Confederacy of Dunces:

"Ignatius Jacques Reilly is something of a modern Don Quixote"

Yeah, definitely better to go to the bookstore.

(Frank, you know that thing you do that makes people not like
you sometimes? I heartily recommend you put down the charts
and graphs and ride over to the library to check out "Bridges
Not Walls".)

To bring this around to the OT topic that ISTR it was, there's
a line in the "Bridges" book - not 100% sure whose words but
I think probably Martin Buber:

"I have never known a young person to be irretrievably bad."

A Confederacy of Dunces is a unique look at New Orleans. Good book on many
levels. Sad story with the author though.
--
duane

On Friday, July 19, 2013 11:10:54 PM UTC-4, Dan wrote:
AMuzi writes:



On 7/19/2013 10:48 AM, Dan quoted:



snip





"In the sphere of material things giving means being rich. Not he who

/has/ much is rich, but he who /gives/ much. The hoarder who is

anxiously worried about losing something is, psychologically speaking,

the poor, impoversihed man, regardless of how much he has. whoever is

capable of giving of himself is rich. He experiences himself as one

who can confer of himself to others. Only one who is deprived of all

that goes beyond the barest of necessitites for subsistence would be

incapable of enjoying the act of giving material things. But daily

experience shows that what a person considers the minimal necessities

depends as much on his character as it depends on his actual possess-

ions. It is well known that the poor are more willing to give than

the rich. Nevertheless, poverty beyond a certain point may make it

impossible to give, and is so degrading, not only because of the

suffering it causes directly, but because of the fact that it deprives

the poor of the joy of giving."



"The most inportant sphere of giving, however, is not of material

things, but lies in the specifically human realm."





+1

Much wisdom; who wrote that?





Erich Fromm.



(So sorry - I really should have attributed the quote.)



Digging through a big box of books yesterday, I came upon it -

one book with an intriguing title, "Bridges Not Walls" (3rd

edition, edited by John Stewart). More than a good title and

'70s-ish look, its very condition (obviously read more than

any of the other books, and at the same time well cared for)

said this was something special - treasured.



And it is. I've only started reading it, but I won't ever be

the same. Not so much that the subject matter is revelatory,

as its collected and distilled brilliance. It's a treasure

chest of assorted gems appreciated first by the editor - a

smart fellow in his own right, then this copy similarly

appreciated by another educator in the field. It's going to

open entire avenues of exploration and reflection for me now.



I've seen and considered plenty of texts on interpersonal

communication; this big box was chock full of them; but

this... oh, this!



It never ends - the learning, the discovery.



Suddenly cosmic coincidences are lining up again. Cross my

heart, I had taken a break from editing this very post, was

pondering all the mediocre (and worse) "educational" material

in the world and how I am sometimes labeled, "unwilling to

learn" (when perhaps I am just discriminating), when I walked

past the TV and heard Alex Trebek give the Final Jeopardy answer

- *another* intriguing book title: "A Confederacy of Dunces".



On my way to the computer to look it up, thinking about how

"Bridges... " had rescued me from reading "The Hunger Games",

picked up because it was the only thing laying around that I

hadn't read that was even a little interesting (I felt like

maybe I had its summary pegged in the first page or two:

"rough burlap"), and now here was *another* book that piqued

my curiosity and maybe we'd have to go to the bookstore and

maybe there I'd find a copy of "Don Quixote" which has been

at the top of my list to read, when this jumped off the

Wikipedia page for Confederacy of Dunces:



"Ignatius Jacques Reilly is something of a modern Don Quixote"



Yeah, definitely better to go to the bookstore.



(Frank, you know that thing you do that makes people not like

you sometimes? I heartily recommend you put down the charts

and graphs and ride over to the library to check out "Bridges

Not Walls".)



To bring this around to the OT topic that ISTR it was, there's

a line in the "Bridges" book - not 100% sure whose words but

I think probably Martin Buber:



"I have never known a young person to be irretrievably bad."

..........

stop raining ?

On 7/19/2013 11:39 PM, datakoll wrote:
ROTHSCHILD


Sure, here's a 1964 for your water bottle:

http://medias.expertissim.com/objet/...850/vin_1N.jpg

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

datakoll writes:


snip



"I have never known a young person to be irretrievably bad."

.........

stop raining ?

I rode through some puddles (apparent thundershower
remnants) on Wednesday morning, but only ever had the
faintest drizzle in the air on my space and time.

On Friday, July 19, 2013 8:10:54 PM UTC-7, Dan wrote:

snip


... "Bridges Not Walls" (3rd edition, edited by John Stewart).

snip


(Frank, you know that thing you do that makes people not like
you sometimes? I heartily recommend you put down the charts
and graphs and ride over to the library to check out "Bridges
Not Walls".)


This book is a treasure. Maybe next time Frank says, "there is
really much to learn", he will consider a healthy dose of his own
medicine. (He may be "astonished" how astutely it explains the
reactions to his communication style that seem to so thoroughly
mystify him.)

Funny thing: This is more relevant to the *things* we argue about
here than Cyclecraft or helmet studies. When you get right down
to it, Frank's complaint is the *communication* that he claims has
people cowering in fear. And what is "traffic" if not interpersonal
and transactional.

snip