interviewed by amergina

[cellio]

1) Did you face any (large) negative reactions from friends and acquaintances when you converted to Judaism?

I saw no large negative reactions from anyone. I saw two classes of small negative reactions. The first is typified by the cousin who asked me (at my bridal shower) "but what about Jesus?". I suspect she is still praying for my lost soul. Well, whatever makes her happy...

The other class came from some (not all!) people who are less observant than I am. These came in two flavors, the people who worried that I was going off the deep end and becoming part of the fanatic right (you know, "those Orthodox"), and those who felt threatened. These latter are the ones who seem to fear that I'd judge them or feel that I'm being presumptuous. You know the scenario from a variety of contexts, probably: newcomer shows up and, instead of just doing what everyone else does, seems to be marching to a different drummer, which may not be How Things Are Done. (I've tried to keep the volume on my drummer turned way way down, but sometimes things come up, y'know? Also, even if you strive to ask questions deferentially, you don't always know which are the hot-button issues in a community you're just joining.)

I should point out that I've gotten very little of any of this and it's always been mild when it does happen. If people are unhappy, either they're keeping it to themselves or I'm oblivious. But I don't think many of the people I know are unhappy. (Most probably don't care, actually.)

2) Do you enjoy writing non-technical material, such as stories or poems?

I enjoy writing fiction, though I seem to lack either the energy or the creativity to create wholly from scratch. So shared worlds appeal to me as something I can actually contribute to. I've been enjoying writing stuff for the D&D campaign I'm playing in (see ralph_dnd).

I never had either knack for or interest in poetry.

3) How has LiveJournal changed your interaction with people? For the better? For the worse?

It's allowed me to get to know people better, including both people I already knew and those I met here. I like to point out that LJ is "pull" while email is "push", so people are more likely to talk about things here -- for the broad audience -- that they might not ever say directly to any particular readers in email or in person. If I send someone email, there's an implicit message of "I want you to read this" (with, perhaps, "and reply"). On LJ, it's just people talking, and if you want to listen in that's fine. So at least some people feel freer to just write what's on their minds, and if I already know someone from another context that can provide an interesting view I wouldn't otherwise have. (I hope I am doing my part to provide such a view to others. I suspect I am, given the number of comments I tend to get.)

I find that LJ particularly helps me to keep in touch with people I would otherwise interact with rarely. That's pretty nifty.

LJ, like any text-based medium, can be home to misunderstandings and drama. I think most of the people I interact with here know that and know to take up a perceived problem through other channels. Not all users get that, which can lead to problems. I try to just steer clear of such messes when they happen.

There are some problems that can arise in real-world social settings. The first is when someone starts to say something and is greeted with "yeah, I read that in your journal" -- real conversation-killer. When I hear someone saying something he posted on LJ, then unless his point in saying it is to specifically make me aware of a piece of data, I'll just listen -- same as I would if I've heard the person tell a story before in a different social group. I suspect that some people -- particularly those in tight-knit groups -- limit their posting so they'll have things to talk about in person. I don't, particularly, but I also don't post everything that happens to me or every idea that pops into my head.

Another social problem arises when the LJ-enabled start having a conversation that's not very meaningful to the non-LJ-enabled in the room. But really, this is the same brand of social obliviousness as, say, talking about club doings with other club members in front of non-members. LJ may accent it a bit because LJ is fairly new to most people, but it's really the same prolem deep down: people need to remain aware of the shared (and unshared) context of the participants in a conversation.

4) Is there something that you like that many people would find surprising or out of character (like a secret like of pro-wresting, or cheesy romance novels or something...)?

I've been thinking about this for a while. I really want to say "yes", because there must be something, but I can't call a particular case to mind. I do not actually have any secret guilty pleasures in TV or reading material, I don't think. (People already know that I'm a fan of M*A*S*H and the original Twilight Zone, right? I don't think that would surprise anyone.)

I think my odd culinary fondnesses are generally known, like chocolate-covered cherries, white chocolate, and peanut-butter cookies. Oh, hey wait... do you remember those assortments of licorice and pure sugar -- no idea what they were called? The bag had half a dozen different varieties, like the "sandwiches" with alternating layers of black licorice and sugar-paste, and the sugar-coconut stuff wrapped around a licorice core, and the little gumdrops, and a few others, all in wacky colors like hot pink and blue and bright yellow. I don't know what was particularly special about that stuff; I don't really like black licorice in other forms. But ok, that would probably be one, except that I haven't had any in years. I wonder if they still make it.

5) If you were elected Mayor of Pittsburgh, how would you go about improving the city (if suddenly the good-old-boy network dried up and you could implement change without people running around like school children worried that you'd take away all their toys)?

First, consolidate services and get rid of excess capacity, whether people or offices. The city is half the size it was a generation ago, but unions and other patronage situations have kept the support structure from shrinking back to accommodate that. So a study of what we really need -- in emergency services, schools, courts, bureaucracy, and so on -- would be an early item of business. Let's set as a goal for the first year a thorough review of the top 50% of the "expense" side of the ledger. (That's 50% by dollars, not by line-items.)

(1.5: Immediately rescind city funding of private ventures like department stores and stadia! Reclaim public property from private institutions as necessary, such as the income from naming rights for a building the taxpayers built.)

Second, take those savings and see what we can do about lowering taxes, particularly for property owners (the long-term taxpayers, in many cases) and businesses (so they'll stay and hire people who'll then pay income taxes). Pittsburgh has been going in the wrong direction here and is at risk of a death-spiral: as more and more businesses and residents leave, the load on those who remain is even worse. We have to break that, which starts with cutting costs and continues with cutting taxes -- not with finding new costs because there's money burning a hole in the mayor's pocket.

Third, I'd look at the role of non-profit organizations in the city. As I understand it casually and from the outside, NPOs consume a lot of resources and pay no taxes. I don't want to discourage NPOs in the aggregate, but we should look at whether the balance between income-producing and not is still appropriate and if, in the absence of income, NPOs could provide other services to the city and its residents. For example, I'd look much more favorably on a university that's not paying taxes if it's doing something to help educate under-served elementary- and high-school kids, for free or very cheap, thus freeing up some tax dollars from public schools. NPOs and taxpayers shouldn't be "us versus them"; it should be "people working together for shared goals", and it's not wrong to expect some service in response to a favorable position. Or, put another way, if an NPO is more interested in acting like a business than in acting like part of the community, then it should be treated as a business economically too. I particularly wonder about the hospitals in this regard.

Fourth, bust monopolies that are mine to bust. Encourage competition and private enterprise. A small operator running a shuttle service does not threaten Port Authority Transit, so let him operate and produce income rather than spending more than he'd produce in shutting him down! And if someone can do mass transit better than PAT can, then we all win by letting that person try. Same for cable companies, DSL, and so forth. There are probably others.

Early on, assemble a panel (or panels) of volunteer experts in economic development, public policy, and related matters and ask them where we need to focus. Sure, everyone who actually agrees to do work on such a panel brings an agenda to the table; that's why you invite more than one of each sort of expert. Some experts won't help if not paid, of course, but I'm betting that there are enough people still here who (1) have relevant expertise and (2) care about fixing the city that we could do something. It costs little to try. This is another area where some NPOs could contribute, by the way.

There's a lot more, but these are the first steps. After that we evaluate where we are.

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Comments

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Pittsburgh and Buffalo are having the same sort of problems. One 'radical' solution proposed is to merge Buffalo with Erie County. The savings would run into millions by consolidation and elimination of duplicate services. But none of the politicians have the kohonoes to do it.

[cellio]

Some people here are talking about city/county merger, too. As you might expect, there's a lot of opposition from the rest of the county ("why should we have to carry their debt?"). Things are kind of ugly here.