The little people within the grant system

I woke up this morning thinking about the "little people" at the bottom rung of these government (USAID for instance) grants who have no idea what's behind the paycheck or where the program has gone. Government work is considered "secure" even if you are part time and temporary as I always was in the 80s. I think about the agricultural credit grant that paid me for 3 years, everyone above me, and a few below. I still see my publications pop up on the internet. 40 years. Later, I helped with grant writing workshops. We probably brought in coffee and bagels for the class. For years I know I worked on grants or attended meetings supported by grants--and there was always good food at our events.

 
Even when I was hired to work in a program (STEPS) to retool senior citizens who'd lost their jobs in the 1980s, we subcontracted out to building owners who supplied the spaces and the computers, and the food services, and probably the local senior organizations who supplied the clients. We travelled around the state--the money coming in was going out and helping the local economy. I'm not saying we didn't do any good or people didn't benefit, but it was mainly me who benefitted--the skills I learned, the publications that moved me ahead in my career path, the friends I made, the information I learned--I even wrote speeches on labor for a politician to give on the road (she was later killed in a plane crash). Mainly I'm talking about funding that had already had about 60% taken off the top by whatever state or local agency/organization had gotten from the federal agency. You can imagine all the people who are paid along the way. From file clerk to janitor to van driver to the lowly researcher who wrote and assembled the learning materials and arranged for it to happen.

It's difficult to track what became of USAID money--I went into the WayBack (?) archive and read the 2016 annual report. The photos are wonderful--lovely black faces beaming over experimental agricultural plots, or happy children in bright clothing raising their hands in class. You can see the model programs, and many did benefit. The report was so vague about actual costs, my eyes glazed over. Having worked in the system, I knew how to write like that. A few words about DEI goals, but minimal. Not like you would read today where each chapter seems to need a paragraph. USAID was established as an independent agency to infiltrate and influence the local culture, but probably not with drag queen shows and sex change operations. Its purpose is to maintain our interests over Russia and China's. Instead, we're creating chaos in the local culture which benefits our enemies.

And I also thought (at 6 a.m.) what $9 million to the Leftist media during the Biden years could have done for the people in North Carolina. Yesterday it was reported that "Politico received at least $8.2 million from the U.S. government in recent years, with $44,000 of that coming from USAID, according to USAspending.gov." The Department of Energy has given Politico $1.29 million, the Department of Agriculture has given $552,024 and the Department of Commerce has given $485,572.
Sigh. No wonder the Democrats are screaming and rioting. Someone is draining the gravy train.

Interesting Congressional hearing report on USAID reporting for 2011. USAID: Following The Money : Committee on Oversight and Government Reform : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive  from Internet Archive.  Obviously, Congress has known for many years what was going on with wasted tax money funneled through USAID.

Anti-slavery collection at Oberlin

"It is proposed to make in the college library an anti-slavery collection, complete as possible, for the future historian, in which shall be gathered every book, every pamphlet, every report, every tract, every newspaper, and every private letter on the subject. For such a collection nothing is unimportant. Scattered here and there these documents are all but worthless, but gathered in one collection they would be priceless." Rev. Henry Matson, librarian at Oberlin College, quoted in the Oberlin Weekly News, February 29, 1884.

Internet Archive (American Libraries collection) Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

https://archive.org/details/antislavery

This would be a good source for Black History Month particularly the autobiographies.

The dangers of ISM--1948 cartoon

Everything is still true today.

Can be downloaded from Internet Archive. Comments are rather amusing and naive at that site.

Saving a culture through its books

99% of the people who visit the National Yiddish Book Center can't read the books, and neither could Aaron Lansky when at age 23 he set out to save thousands and thousands of priceless Yiddish books, books that had survived immigration across many countries and destruction by Hitler and Stalin. The older, Yiddish speakers were dying, and their treasures were being thrown out. Yiddish books were a portable homeland, and after Jews had a homeland, many people forgot them. His first visit to an elderly man involved sitting down with him to hear the story of each book. Stop at the home page and click on the brief film about the National Yiddish Book Center. (I was unable to embed the video.) I had tears in my eyes and marveled at the story of this young man who saved a culture that spanned hundreds of years and many cultures.

And now, through Internet Archive, you can visit too. The National Yiddish Book Center, founded in 1980, "is proud to offer online access to the full texts of nearly 11,000 out-of-print Yiddish titles. You can browse, read, download or print any or all of these books, free of charge. These titles were scanned under the auspices of our Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library, and have been made available online through the Internet Archive."

The index isn't difficult to use, the tags are self explanatory, and even if you don't read Yiddish, you can enjoy the pictures, like the 1926 vegetarian cook book I looked through.

I started my professional career (as a graduate assistant) unpacking and dusting off hundreds of PL 480 books in the bowels of the library at the University of Illinois. I can start sneezing from the memory of mold of the boxes and boxes of books brought to the vet library from the barn after grandpa died and no one knew what to do with his books. So I have a tender spot for this story. Many years ago I'd read about Lansky's efforts--probably before he had a building, and long before digitization made it possible for me to see his efforts. A truly amazing rescue work.

2617 The Halls of Ivy need weeding

Remember the old song, Halls of Ivy? I'm not sure of its origins, but it was the theme song for a radio drama from 1949-1952 starring Ronald Coleman (and briefly on TV). It takes place in the fictitious Ivy College.

"Oh we love The Halls Of Ivy, that surround us here today
And we will not forget, though we be far far away
To the hallowed Halls of Ivy
Every voice will bid farewell
And shimmer off in twilight like the old vesper bell."

I can get weepy just humming it. It was a marvelous and rather intellectual show for which I think you can get tapes or downloads. However, the phrase "halls of ivy" refers to the old traditional, ivy covered buildings of a prestigious university. College isn't what it used to be, is it?

Every culture, race, ethnicity, nation, tribe, family structure and language is wonderful, complex, rich in meaning and worthy of respect in the hallowed halls of ivy (academe)--except ours in the United States of America. I'm working my way through "Companion to American Immigration," (Ueda, 2006) and although well-written and readable, this is the message I'm getting in the essays I've read so far.

You can listen to Halls of Ivy at Internet Archive.