No good deed goes unpunished may mean that a kind action might not be properly appreciated by the recipient, or it may mean that doing something kind will lead to expectations and demands for more help and benefits.  The idea is that in the end, many people do not appreciate the effort behind a kindness, or may believe they deserve something that they do not.  The phrase no good deed goes unpunished is a cynical twist on the idea that good people are rewarded for being good.  In real life, this is often not the case.  The proverb no good deed goes unpunished has been variously attributed to Walter Winchell, John P. Grier, Oscar Wilde and Clare Boothe Luce.  https://grammarist.com/proverb/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished/

January 3, 2020  While many of us were at home relaxing family or contemplating the impending arrival of the new year, Washington novelist Mary Kay Zuravleff was spending a few quiet moments at a gravestone in Georgetown’s historic Oak Hill Cemetery.  On the day after Christmas 2019, Zuravleff convened a few fellow writers to lay a wreath at the grave of a once-famous but now largely forgotten D.C. author, marking the 200th anniversary of her birth.  “E.D.E.N. Southworth,” the white stone reads.  “Born Dec. 26, 1819.   Died June 30, 1899.  Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth was one of the most successful American writers—male or female—of the mid-19th century, outselling contemporaries like Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.  She was a mainstay of Washington’s early literary scene:  She hosted Friday night salons at her Georgetown cottage, attended Lincoln’s second inaugural ball, and is even credited with encouraging Harriet Beecher Stowe to write the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  Much of Southworth’s work was published in magazines, including her most famous work, The Hidden Hand.  In that 1859 serialized novel, the protagonist Capitola Black outruns murderers, captures an outlaw, participates in a duel and marches her way through a myriad of other adventures. The story was widely translated and reprinted abroad.  Southworth was also staunchly anti-slavery and feminist, in her own way.  Many of her stories featured women having adventures that Southworth’s readers were often unable to experience firsthand.  Southworth  began teaching at a D.C. public school at 13th and C Streets Southwest but grew frustrated with the low pay and the salary disparity between male and female teachers.  She then started submitting stories to magazines and newspapers and found success.  Until about a year ago, Southworth’s headstone was off its base and in disrepair.  Oak Hill’s superintendent, Dave Jackson, had it cleaned and reinstalled after receiving an email from a Georgetown librarian about the author’s upcoming 200th birthday.  Jackson has a couple of Southworth’s books in his office but says he doesn’t get many people asking about her—just a handful in the eight years he’s been at Oak Hill.  Part of the reason, Zuravleff offered, might be because Southworth isn’t included on the cemetery website’s list of “Women of Interest” or famous writers.  (Everyone on the latter list is male.)  Jackson acknowledged that she should be on there.  “May this be the first of many resurrections,” Zuravleff said with a laugh.  Mikaela Lefrak  https://dcist.com/story/20/01/03/she-was-one-of-americas-most-successful-19th-century-writers-and-largely-forgotten-until-now/

Robert Hass (born 1941) is one of the most celebrated and widely-read contemporary American poets.  In addition to his success as a poet, Hass is also recognized as a leading critic and translator, notably of the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz and Japanese haiku masters Basho, Buson, and Issa.  Critics celebrate Hass’s own poetry for its clarity of expression, its concision, and its imagery, often drawn from everyday life.  In 1984, Hass published Twentieth Century Pleasures:  Prose on Poetry, a collection of previously published essays and reviews.  In the volume, the author examines American writers (including Robert Lowell and James Wright) as well as European and Japanese poets.  The book was well-received and won many awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award.  From 1995 to 1997, Hass set aside his personal role as poet to take up the mantle of the nation’s poet, serving as U.S. poet laureate.  A largely ceremonial position, historically speaking, the poet laureate has recently become far more of a public advocate for poets and their work.  In the mid-1990s, Hass cofounded River of Words, an organization that teaches ecoliteracy through multidisciplinary, interactive curricula.  In addition to serving as the U.S. poet laureate, Hass was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007.  In 2014, he won the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.  Hass is Distinguished Professor in Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in California with his wife, the poet Brenda Hillman.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-hass  Link to poems of Robert Hass at https://www.poemhunter.com/robert-hass/poems/

Has Listening Become a Lost Art?  Kate Murphy on the Evolving Modes of Communication in the 21st Century   Social media activity and polling continues to be used as a proxy for what “real people” are thinking.  Tempted by the ease and seemingly broad access, it’s now common for print and television journalists and commentators to quote from Twitter and Facebook rather than going out and getting quotes that come from actual people’s mouths.  Seen as efficient and data driven, looking at what’s trending on social media or conducting online surveys is largely how listening is done in the 21st century by the press, politicians, lobbyists, activists, and business interests.  But it’s questionable that social media activity reflects society at large.  Repeated investigations have shown that fake or bot accounts are responsible for much of the content.  It’s estimated that 15 to 60 percent of social media accounts do not belong to real people.  One study showed 20 percent of tweets related to the 2016 US election came from bots.  Audits of the Twitter accounts of music celebrities, including Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, and Katy Perry found that the majority of their tens of millions of followers were bots.  https://lithub.com/has-listening-become-a-lost-art/

Happy Birthday, Charles John Huffam Dickens born February 7, 1812.  The English writer and social critic created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.  His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius.  His novels and short stories are still widely read today.  Read extensive article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens

Shiv’at HaMinim Salad (Seven Species Salad)

3 cups cooked barley

¼ cup dried figs, chopped

¼ cup pitted dates, sliced in rings or chopped

¼ cup seedless grapes, halved, or raisins

¼ cup pomegranate seeds

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon country Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons parsley leaves, torn

Toasted pine nuts

Combine barley, figs, dates, grapes, and pomegranate seeds in a large bowl.  Place oil, honey, vinegar, and mustard in a small bowl and whisk to combine.  Pour dressing over barley salad and toss to coat well.  Garnish with parsley leaves and pine nuts.  Yield:  4 to 6 servings  Source:  Adapted from Jamie Geller, Joy of Kosher  https://www.toledoblade.com/a-e/food/2020/02/04/tu-b-shevat-celebrates-jewish-new-year-of-the-trees/stories/20200205001

William Henry Watson is serving a 36-year prison term for conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and a life spent behind bars has its challenges.  On days when he feels angry, despairing or sad, he turns for inspiration to people who have never let him down:  Barack Obama, Harry S Truman, LeBron James, Harriet Tubman and Stephen King.  These are the authors of some of Watson’s favorite books, which he has read during his incarceration.  “Reading changed me,” said Watson, who now works as a clerk in the prison library at Jessup Correctional Institution, “and when it did, it began to change other people’s perceptions of me.”  He hopes that a recent $100,000 grant from the Maryland State Library to purchase thousands of books for prison libraries will provide a similar morale boost for his fellow inmates.  Department of Correction officials celebrated the donation in December 2019 by leading visitors on a tour of Jessup’s library, an unimposing, carpeted room with shelves that hold roughly 6,000 books and with a circulation desk at the front.  June Brittingham, who supervises Maryland’s prison libraries, said the prison system provides incentives to encourage incarcerated men and women to participate in book discussion groups and other literacy-enhancing activities.  “A lot of our inmates weren’t readers before they came to prison," she said.  "Maybe they originally join a discussion group for some reason other than reading a book.  But then they get hooked.”  Watson said it was Obama’s 2006 essay “The Audacity of Hope" that “started to shift my ideology” and transformed him into a serious reader.  He quoted the 44th U.S. president from memory:  “Obama said, ‘This is not red America or white America or blue America. This is the United States of America.’"  Those words made him curious about the challenges facing other American leaders. Watson began checking out biographies of previous U.S. presidents from Lincoln to Truman.  Mary Carole McCauley  https://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/bs-fe-prisoners-read-20200110-nwoz5esy6nhwhcoapmyyy5hzqy-story.html

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body.  Then I realized who was telling me this. - Emo Phillips, comedian, actor (b. 7 Feb 1956)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2221  February 7, 2020