The clouds have been thick and dark today; and while we have seen a little bit of sun now and then, the clouds have persisted all day. In the summer, we may get morning fog that blots out the sun, but it generally clears away in the afternoon; but winter clouds don’t disappear by midday. It was supposed to rain today; it hasn’t yet, at least not where I am; but it does feel like the summer dry season is slowly winding down.
Monthly Archives: October 2009
A modest proposal concerning franchises which market the “UU” brand
Hello, dear readers, Mr. Crankypants is ba-aack! Yes, your favorite curmudgeon (and Dan’s evil alter ego) is here again, still referring to himself in the third person, and still criticizing anything he thinks is wrong with the world.
Today, Mr. C. would like to talk with about the absurd business model used by Unitarian Universalist congregations. You see, as it stands now, Unitarian Universalist congregations operate under a sort of franchise model. If your congregation has the Unitarian Universalist franchise in a given location, that means your congregation has the exclusive right to market the “UU” brand in that location. Thus we have the Prime Rule of UU Franchises: No upstart Unitarian Universalist congregation may set up shop in your location.
There are exceptions to the Prime Rule. (1) If your congregation has an internal conflict, and half your members leave and form a new congregation nearby, the Powers That Be will frown upon the new congregation for a time, and then accept them fully as a new franchise. (2) If your congregation chooses to spin off a new congregation near your present location, the Powers That Be will not frown at all, but will applaud your alleged entrepreneurial audacity.
Now consider this scenario: A certain Unitarian Universalist congregation — call it “UU Church of Halfdead” or UUCH (pronounced “ouch”) — has been the only franchise of the UU brand in a certain city for the past century. Now UUCH’s membership is down to just 20 people — oops, make that 19 people, one of them just died. All the members are over 70, there is no program for children, and UUCH has no intention of changing anything in order to attract young people (“young” being defined as under the age of 60). Did Mr. Crankypants mention that UUCH has no Web site, they never advertise, and they have no sign on their building? Most people in the community don’t even know they exist. And all they do is use their endowment to maintain their big, old, ramshackle church building.
So what do you think would happen if some enterprising and entrepreneurial folks decided to start up a new Unitarian Universalist congregation in that city? Let’s say it’s a store-front church aimed at people in their 20s and 30s. The Powers That Be would gnash their teeth and decry the efforts of those entrepreneurial upstarts. The leaders of UUCH would weep and wail and call them poachers. Everyone would make big frown-y faces at the entrepreneurial upstarts and tell them that they are Bad People. Never mind the fact that UUCH consistently gets rid of all newcomers. Never mind the fact that a store-front church aimed at Generation Y will be utterly different than a dying church for people over 70. No, we would gnash our teeth and wail wildly, because every UU congregation, no matter how dysfunctional, has an exclusive franchise!
So here’s a modest proposal:
Assume that actual and potential Unitarian Universalists constitute 0.5% of the total U.S. population. Any Unitarian Universalist congregation that draws an average annual attendance of less 0.5% of the total population of its service area loses all right to have an exclusive franchise, and opens itself up to the possibility that an entrepreneurial congregation-planter could come in a start a new congregation within that service area. We’ll let existing congregations determine the exact boundaries of their service areas — they can make those service areas as small as they like, so as to be able to claim an average attendance of 0.5% — but entrepreneurial congregation planters can plant new congregations anywhere outside of defined service areas. Congregations which choose not to determine exact boundaries of their service areas automatically give permission to entrepreneurial congregation planters to determine those boundaries for them.
If this modest proposal were adopted, someone might start up a new Unitarian Universalist congregation in a store-front near your present church! And what if the only way you could combat that new upstart congregation was to actually welcome newcomers, to jazz up (literally) your worship service, and to ditch your old Policy Governance (TM) or other outmoded organizational structure — that is, what if your only defense was to change the way you did church, and make it better than it was before?
Mr. Crankypants believes this is what is called a “disruptive” proposal… well, it would be disruptive if their were any such thing as a Unitarian Universalist who was also an entrepreneurial congregation planter. Sigh. Even so, it’s still fun to think about.
Nobel Prize Committee Troll Investigation
Oslo, Norway
A spokesperson for the Norwegian police confirmed that they are investigating whether the Nobel Prize Committee intended its award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama as a sophisticated form of trolling.
A source close to the investigation, who requested anonymity, confirmed that police here believe the award was designed to provoke U.S. bloggers and talk radio hosts into screaming themselves senseless.
In related stories, both Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh were rushed to local emergency rooms early this morning when they passed out after expressing their outrage that Mr. Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. Moore reportedly collapsed when he screamed, “But he’s still escalating troop levels!” while Limbaugh collapsed after screaming, “Sarah Palin would’nt’ve allowed this, this is what happens in Obama’s America!”
Watching for winter-wet season
I’ve been reading Gary Snyder’s most recent book of essays, Back on Fire (2007). In a couple of the essays, Snyder talks about the two seasons in the Mediterranean-type climate of much of California: there’s the summer-dry season, and the winter-wet season.
It has been odd for me, having recently moved from the south coast of Massachusetts, to hear people in California talk about seasons. We had a cool day a couple of days ago, and I overheard someone in the supermarket say to the cashier, “Fall is finally here.” It doesn’t feel like autumn to me. Autumn means a killing frost, and a changing weather pattern that includes more rain storms, and wide variations between warm and cold. We have not had a killing frost here, nor an increased incidence of rain storms; the earth, where it hasn’t been watered by in-ground irrigation systems, is still hard and parched and cracked dry, and the grasses are still dry and crisp, and the fire danger (as it is every summer in California) is still very high. We are not experiencing autumn here yet; we are still in the summer-dry season.
Somewhere in one of the essays in Back on Fire, Snyder says people living in California should abandon the kind of lawns and landscapes that require heavy water usage in the summer — practices that have been imported from the “Atlantic coast,” says Snyder; although these practices are really indigenous to the English climate, because even on the Atlantic coast lawns need heavy irrigation in the summer in order to stay green. But as a poet, Snyder also gives us new language, so that we can start thinking and acting in new ways. The English language has names for four seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn or fall; these words come from the land where the English language began. In New England, most years have five seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall, Indian summer; we had to invent a new term for that season between fall and winter when the leaves have all fallen and weather gets warm again and there is still plenty of fresh food for humans and other animals to eat. In this bioregion of California, west of the crest of the Sierras, there are just two seasons, which Snyder calls summer-dry and winter-wet; to try to impose the old English terms for the four English seasons is a kind of self-delusion.
So it does not feel like autumn yet, because there is no autumn here, not really. Winter-wet has not yet begun; the hills are still brown, the trees are dull and faded green; we are still waiting for the first big rain storm of the new season. Yet here near the Pacific coast, we can feel that the weather pattern is changing; the fog is not reliable as it is in the middle of the summer-dry season. (And maybe here we need to add a third season to Snyder’s two, because Snyder lives up in the foothills of the Sierras where there is no summer fog. Maybe we need to talk about a summer-fog season which precedes the real summer-dry season; but I haven’t lived here long enough to be able to say.) We’re still in summer-dry season, but winter-wet season is just around the corner.
More on Eastern New England accents
In an earlier post, I spoke about how I’ve been teaching children in Sunday school how to speak with an Eastern New England accent. That has gotten me thinking about Eastern New England accents — for there is more than one accent indigenous to the region.
Wikipedia has a fairly good article on Boston English, and they do recognize that different socio-economic classes in the region have different accents (alas, their article on the upper class “Boston Brahmin” accent is barely a stub). In addition to explaining non-rhoticity, the Wikipedists point out some pronunciation peculiarities that I didn’t know I had, such as the caught-cot merger. But they don’t include one key phonological characteristic that I have noticed over they years: the presence of the glottal stop as a consonant. Thus, for example, people from certain parts of the Boston area pronounce “metal” with a glottal stop in place of a “t.” Similarly, many of us pronounce “yup” with a glottal stop in place of the “p.”
There used to be fairly strong class and regional differences within Eastern New England. When I was working as a salesman twenty years ago, I could almost tell what town someone came from by their accent — if, that is, they were working class. Middle class accents differed from working class accents, and had less regional differentiation within the broader Eastern New England region, but there were still broad distinctions in the Boston area between North Shore, urban, and South Shore accents. I did not come into contact with many upper class accents, but they were clearly distinct from working class and middle class accents.
While the distinctive Eastern New England accent has been changing in recent years, and fading with the onslaught of people migrating in from out of state, it still exists. There are still some regional differences within Eastern New England — I certainly noticed a distinct difference in accent when I moved to New Bedford five years ago. Providence and Boston still have their distinctive accents, as does the coast of Maine.
I would love to hear from my readers about your experiences with the Eastern New England accent (whether you’re a native speaker or an outsider). What regional differences have you noticed within the Eastern New England accent? How about some good regional vocabulary I can teach the kids (e.g., Marybeth has already suggested “bubblah”)?
Freelancer’s Union
I just joined the Freelancer’s Union. This is a non-traditional union — it’s not focused on a single industry, instead of dues it charges fees for services. Yet as a union, it gets directly involved with the political process to fight for rights of workers. So, for example, about 30% of the U.S. workforce can currently be classified as freelance workers, yet our health insurance system is designed so that employers provide health insurance only to workers who are permanent employees. Freelancers (all the way from day laborers to high-priced consultants) may find themselves either unable to get health insurance, or forced to pay far more per individual than big employers do.
I joined the Freelancer’s Union because in many ways clergypeople function as freelancers. Yes, I’m a full-time permanent employee right now, and yes I’m lucky enough to work for a congregation that provides me with adequate health care — but lots of Unitarian Universalist ministers (and clergy of all faith traditions) are not so lucky. In my case, I do belong to a professional association, the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association (UUMA), but frankly the UUMA useless when it comes to helping me with things like health insurance, and advocating for me in the political arena. Indeed, the only reason I belong to the UUMA is that I am required to do so to stay in fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association — other than that, the UUMA is a useless drag on my professional expenses.
So I’m putting the word out to other clergypeople I know — think about joining the Freelancer’s Union. It’s a national membership organization for independent workers, and we think independent workers should ahve the same rights as traditional workers. We’re a big political constituency, and we can organize around issues, and make politicians listen. It’s all about working together to make all of our lives more secure. Check it out, and see what you think.
The folk process
We’ve been singing a great song in my Labor Heritage Chorus, called “May the Work that I Have Done.” The lyrics that we use go something like this:
May the work that I have done speak for me,
May the work that I have done speak for me,
If I fall short of my goal, someone else will take a hold,
May the work that I have done speak for me.
It’s easy to make up more verses: May the marches I’ve been on speak for me; May the songs that I have sung; etc.
But where did this song come from? Mudcat.org, the indispensable folk music Web site, has a short thread on this song, tracing it back to a 1969 recording by the gospel duo The Consolers; the songwriting credit goes to Sullivan Pugh, one half of that duo. New lyrics (basically what I’ve included above) are attributed to San Franciscan John Fromer.
Now I’d love to be able to share this song with Sunday school volunteers here at church. But the easiest way to share such a song in a Unitarian Universalist church is with sheet music. Unfortunately, the tune we’ve been singing in the Labor Heritage Chorus is somewhat similar to the Consoler’s recorded version, but it has been run through the folk process long enough that it now sounds significantly different — the only sheet music I’ve been able to find uses the Consoler’s version of the tune and words. This probably means I’ll have to transcribe yet another song. Nobody ever told me in seminary that I’d feel the need to transcribe songs as part of being a minister.
Improved communication tools…
Google is trumpeting another revolution: Google Wave, a new online communication tool. This video makes Google Wave look pretty good — the best of email, Facebook, online collaboration, SMS, etc., all rolled into one user-friendly package. But Wave is still in development, and we’ll have to wait and see if it turns out to be the real thing, or just another clunky dead-end.
Even if Google Wave turns out to be crap, I will say we are overdue for some kind of improved communication tool. Here in the Palo Alto church, we do a fair amount of online collaboration and communication, and we’d be hard-pressed to function without it. Non-profit organizations have to make increasingly efficient use of staff time and volunteer time (and I think the Great Recession has accelerated this process), but the tools we currently have available to us feel clunky. Email is essential, but we all know how awkward email can be. Google Docs and other online collaboration tools work well, but they are very limited. Texting works for me, but the only people who text are people my age or younger, and texting does not easily lend itself to conversations involving multiple people. Blogging is another great tool, for those of us who read and/or write blogs. Most of all, I do think it would be nice to have something that integrated all these disparate communication tools, and the real genius of Google Wave might be the idea of having all these different communication tools integrated into one place.
Update 4 August 2010: Google has announced it will no longer continue to support Wave. This comes not long after Facebook passed half a billion users.
Are you a tenner or a twelver?
The big question in certain California circles right now is whether you are a tenner or a twelver; that is, do you think we should try to pass a ballot measure reversing Prop 8 (and restoring the right to same-sex marriage) in 2010, or in 2012?
The Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry (UULM) recently released a “pastoral letter” outlining their position as twelvers. While certainly UULM’s position will annoy some people who are tenners, if you read the actual letter you’ll find it to be carefully considered. UULM points out that one factor they took into consideration is the changed economic climate, which “has ripped holes in the fabric of essential human services.” I would state this more bluntly: in the middle of the Great Recession, with the unemployment rate rising, would you rather donate money to overriding Prop 8 (knowing that millions and millions of dollars from opponents of same-sex marriage will pour into Caligornia), or would you rather donate your money to food banks and poverty relief programs? UULM offers additional pragmatic reasons why we should wait until 2012, and it’s worth reading their letter.
You will not be surprised to learn that I myself am a reluctant twelver. I call myself a reluctant twelver, because I would prefer to see religious marriage separated from marriage as a civil contract. In the mean time, I hope we can postpone the fight to overturn Prop 8 until 2012. If someone puts it on the ballot for 2010, I guess I’ll have to roll up my sleeves and fight tooth and nail to overturn Prop 8 next year — but I hope it doesn’t come to that.