Come, Sit by the Hearth ...

"Breast Cancer is NOT a Pink Ribbon"

2012-02-13T09:34:00.000-08:00

of breast cancer.

Did You Think I Forgot?

2012-02-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

Learn more about Black History Month and African-Americans who have made extraordinary contributions and achievements in their fields

- Including one we've just bid goodbye.

The album cover sleeve of Etta James by Etta James, released in 1962.

(Photo by GAB Archive/Redferns)

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-02-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

It seems a little strange that we [Catholics] are so wildly exercised about the 'murder' (and the word is of course correct) of an unborn infant by abortion, or even the prevention of conception which is hardly murder, and yet accept without a qualm the extermination of millions of helpless and innocent adults, some of whom may be Christians and even our friends rather than our enemies. I submit that we ought to fulfill the one without omitting the other.

- Thomas Merton,

Cold War Letters.

Even standing still, they look fast

2012-02-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

I should welcome the poor to my feast,

2012-02-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

For they are God’s children.
I should welcome the sick to my feast,
For they are God’s joy.
Let the poor sit with Jesus at the highest place,
And the sick dance with the angels.

Godbless the poor,
God bless the sick,
And bless our human race.
God bless our food,
God bless our drink,
All homes, O God embrace.

- St.Brigid

Feast day, February 1.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-02-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.

And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression.

And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.

How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.

Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.”

– V For Vendetta.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-02-09T09:24:00.001-08:00

And you’re not allowed to have a law that “serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity” of a given minority.

It’s easy to pass such laws, given that minorities, being in the minority, are easily outnumbered.

But this is what the Constitution and equal protection and the rule of law are for — making sure that the majority can’t pull stunts like that just because there happen to be more of them.

- Slacktivist.

(emphasis all mine)

From Me, To You . . .

2012-02-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday

to the best part of me.

This is One of My Daughter's Favorite Poems

2012-02-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

Antigonish

[I met a man who wasn't there]

by Hughes Mearns

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-02-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently.

There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted. ... Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.

- U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Remember This for Shark Week

2012-02-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

What To Do About Sharks

by Vivian Shipley

If a hammerhead or a great white makes
waves during your workshop or poetry reading,
don't flap your elbows or slap at it with rolled
manuscripts. Sharks thrive on visual stimulation.

Blow out candles. Ease away from the podium,
and wait at least ten minutes before going
for a light switch. Join hands to keep karma
with the other poets. It's okay to recite
poems you memorized in fifth grade,
Joyce Kilmer, in desperation, even Longfellow.

Rule of thumb: it's a shark not a dolphin
if it is slamming about the room, hugging,
blowing air kisses. Performers, sharks
are almost all instinct and no brain. Without
a sense of occasion, they'll crash any gig,
underwater or not, from Madagascar to Malibu.

Being eyed by a shark can be exasperating,
but don't rush or shift from foot to foot
to induce motion sickness. Sharks are immune.
They are, however, dyslexic. Flash cover quotes,
prize-winning poems directly in front of both eyes.
Better yet—stop reading. Pull your new hardback
from a knapsack, and if the shark noses you
with repeated sharp jabs, hit it on the snout.

If all else fails, sharks have a keen sense
of hearing. Sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic
at the top of your lungs. Sharks have short
attention spans, get bored, leave if there is
no open mike. So, swing into another verse:
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-02-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

I hope that Sojourner Truth would be proud to see me, a descendant of slaves, serving as the First Lady of the United States of America.

– First Lady Michelle Obama

A Good Bit of the Country Could Use a Summer Poem Right About Now

2012-02-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

Little Summer Poem Touching The Subject Of Faith
by Mary Oliver

Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything --
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green
stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker --
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

Iqbal Hussain, Voice in the Wilderness

2012-02-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

Iqbal Hussain, Pakistan’s most infamous artist, grew up in the Heera Mandi, Lahore’s red light district, among the “dancing girls” who are now his models.

[H]e calls himself a "voice in the wilderness," who brings attention to the squalid conditions of an ignored segment of Pakistani society.

“I’m trying to bring this in front of people,” Hussain said. Heera Mandi’s prostitutes “deserve to be respected," he says. "Their children need to be educated. They need health care.”

- Joel Elliott and Jodi Hilton.

Because of his choice of female models, Iqbal Hussain like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is called a "painter of prostitutes and dancing girls."

- Pervaiz Munir Alvi.

Iqbal Hussain is an artist who has opened the shutters of the world he lives in to a reluctant ‘other.’ Since his first controversial solo exhibition in the ’80s, his bold disclosures have been lauded universally and shown around the world through teams of documentary filmmakers. He is a prolific painter whose studio is always open to his troubled community who tend to get together after their working hours and chat. ...

Included in the display were allegorical paintings; groups of women uniformly dressed and held at gunpoint. The artist creates powerful, dark, dramatic scenes, as well as the lighter images confronting the observer with the humanity of his subjects. One discovers sadness as well as moments of cheer, the love between mother and child and trust between friends. Once the mask of the profession is removed, one recognises the vulnerability of people born into a way of life from which there is little chance of escape. ...

- Poignantworks: The world of Iqbal Hussain,

Marjorie Husain.

2012-02-03T00:03:00.000-08:00

My grumbling wife -
if only she were here!
This moon tonight...

- Issa

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-02-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

Liberty can not be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have…a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, and I mean the characters and conduct of their leaders.

- John Adams,

articulating the most eloquent summary of America’s ideals

and the importance and necessity of having an informed public.

Six More Weeks . . .

2012-02-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

P. Phil.

Politics Over Promises

2012-02-02T00:05:00.000-08:00

Would the real Susan G. Komen be satisfied that the legacy of her sister's promise? Would she want access to breast cancer treatment to be dependent on a woman's income? Or would she hope that "curing cancer" meant espousing an ideology that sought to heal and help rather than divide and deny? That sounds a lot more "pro-life" to me.

How the Susan G. Komen Foundation Lost Its Way.

PRIOR STORIES:

Susan G. Komen Foundation Bows to Anti-Choice Bullying; Stops Contributing to Planned Parenthood.

Susan G. Komen Foundation Begins Backpedaling for the Cure.

No Time . . .

2012-02-02T00:03:00.000-08:00

QUOTEs OF THE DAY

2012-02-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

from: To name the unnameable,

Kenan Malik .

"A poet's work. To name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep."

- the satirical poet, Baal.

"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties"

- John Milton, Areopagitica.

It is this idea of speech as intrinsically good that has been transformed.

Today, free speech is as likely to be seen as a threat to liberty as its shield. By its very nature, many argue, speech damages basic freedoms. It is not intrinsically a good but inherently a problem because speech inevitably offends and harms. Speech, therefore, has to be restrained, not in exceptional circumstances, but all the time and everywhere, especially in diverse societies with a variety of deeply held views and beliefs. Censorship (and self-censorship) has to become the norm. "Self-censorship", as the Muslim philosopher and spokesman for the Bradford Council of Mosques Shabbir Akhtar put it at the height of the Rushdie affair, "is a meaningful demand in a world of varied and passionately held convictions. What Rushdie publishes about Islam is not just his business. It is everyone's – not least every Muslim's – business."

Increasingly politicians and policy makers, publishers and festival organizers, liberals and conservatives, in the East and in the West, have come to agree. Whatever may be right in principle, many now argue, in practice one must appease religious and cultural sensibilities because such sensibilities are so deeply felt.

We live in a world, so the argument runs, in which there are deep-seated conflicts between cultures embodying different values. For such diverse societies to function and to be fair, we need to show respect for other peoples, cultures, and viewpoints. Social justice requires not just that individuals are treated as political equals, but also that their cultural beliefs are given equal recognition and respect. The avoidance of cultural pain has, therefore, come to be regarded as more important than the abstract right to freedom of expression. As the British sociologist Tariq Modood has put it, "If people are to occupy the same political space without conflict, they mutually have to limit the extent to which they subject each others' fundamental beliefs to criticism." What the anti-Baals of today most fear is starting arguments. What they most want is for the world to go to sleep.

The consequence of all this has been the creation not of a less conflicted world, but of one that is more sectarian, fragmented and tribal.

As the novelist Monica Ali has put it, "If you set up a marketplace of outrage you have to expect everyone to enter it. Everyone now wants to say, 'My feelings are more hurt than yours'."

The more that policy makers give license for people to be offended, the more that people will seize the opportunity to feel offended.

It leads to the encouragement of interest groups and the growth of sectarian conflict.

(all emphasis mine)

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-02-01T00:05:00.000-08:00

[E]volution actually provides a powerful antidote to racism. From an evolutionary point of view, we’re all African and our differences really are insignificant.

- Quinn O'Neill,
Creationism in the Classroom: A Tragic State of Affairs.

Reverse: A Lynching

2012-02-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

- Ansel Elkins

Return the tree, the moon, the naked man
Hanging from the indifferent branch
Return blood to his brain, breath to his heart
Reunite the neck with the bridge of his body
Untie the knot, undo the noose
Return the kicking feet to ground
Unwhisper the word jesus
Rejoin his penis with his loins
Resheathe the knife Regird the calfskin belt through trouser loops
Refasten the brass buckle
Untangle the spitting men from the mob
Unsay the word nigger
Release the firer’s finger from its trigger
Return the revolver to its quiet holster
Return the man to his home
Unwidow his wife
Unbreak the window
Unkiss the crucifix of her necklace
Unsay Hide the children in the back, his last words
Repeal the wild bell of his heart
Reseat his family at the table over supper
Relace their fingers in prayer, unbless the bread
Rescind the savagery of men
Return them from animal to human, reborn in the long run
Backward to the purring pickup
Reignite the Ford’s engine, its burning headlights
Retreat down the dirt road, tires speeding
Backward into rising dust
Backward past cornfields, past the night floating moths
Rescind the whiskey from the guts
Unswallowed, unswigged, the tongue unstung
Rehouse the flask in the field coat’s interior pocket
Unbare the teeth, unwhet the appetite
Return the howl to its wolf
Return the shovel to the barn, the rope to the horse’s stable
Resurrect the dark from its heart housed in terror

Reenter the night through its door of mercy

This poem was one of the winners of the 2011 “Discovery” Poetry Contest.

1920 Duluth lynchings.

A public memorial in Duluth, Minn.,

commemorates the 1920 lynching of three men.

Did Someone Say Chocolate?

2012-01-31T00:05:00.000-08:00

. . . AND SHOES!!!

Gayle's Chocolates

POETRY: Read More, Blog More

2012-01-31T00:01:00.001-08:00

This post is the first in a series of monthly poetry posts written in response to the READ MORE, BLOG MORE challenge sponsored by Regular Rumination.

I would appreciate your response to the posts as they go up. Be honest. I'm a big girl. Just remember, house rules: Do unto others & such.

I'll ease into the challenge with a bit of reflection:

I will admit, my desire to publicly discuss poetry has taken a few hits through the years. Back in school (late Paleozoic period) my teachers had definitive and unassailable ideas about the meanings and messages in each poem we read. Invariably, my thoughts and ideas were different, and therefore wrong. Slapped down in class repeatedly, I shared less and less. I never lost my love for poetry, but I stopped sharing it.

The final blow, however, came while in a grad school. A hole in the university's scheduling left me a rare chance to take a poetry writing class. I was an English education major in a seminar with writing majors. It was also my first writing seminar, and my peers were veterans of many years. I shouldn't have been surprised by subsequent events. But I was.

We were prompted. We wrote. We sat in circles and offered critique on each others' writing. I loved the writing and steeled myself for the critique of my peers. Initially, I was more worried about evaluating the others than hearing their comments. But that changed. Quickly.

My peers delighted in literary allusion. Well trained writing, packed to the rafters with them, forced me to spend more time researching than reading. Even then I was left with the feeling I had missed something.

I, on the other hand, an avid reader, a Literacy and English Language Arts teacher, loved to play with words. Manipulating the sounds and meanings to create something that is just a little bit more than it was, gave (and gives) me tremendous pleasure. And making it seem effortless is an art to which I still aspire.

The comment I heard most often was, "I didn't know that word, so I didn't 'get' the poem." Did they look it up? no.

They were polite. They were supportive. They tried hard to hide their exasperation as they patiently explained how to rewrite each poem; changing allusions, changing symbolism, changing word choice - especially word choice - until it said what they thought it should. Until it was a completely different poem. Not my poem.

I smiled. I explained my choices. I thanked them for their kindness. And I retreated into silence.

I still love poetry. I read all that I can get into my greedy little hands. I write it. I share the poetry I love on this Blog. But do I talk about it? Until today, no.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next installment, scheduled for February 28. Who knows what wonders may take root and grow in this modest little place.

My Favorite Color

2012-01-31T00:00:00.002-08:00

Photo source.

QUOTE OF THE . . . CENTURY

2012-01-31T00:00:00.001-08:00

There are two ways of viewing the Government’s duty in matters affecting economic and social life. The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small business man. That theory belongs to the party of Toryism, and I had hoped that most of the Tories left this country in 1776.

But it is not and never will be the theory of the Democratic Party. This is no time for fear, for reaction or for timidity. Here and now I invite those nominal Republicans who find that their conscience cannot be squared with the groping and the failure of their party leaders to join hands with us; here and now, in equal measure, I warn those nominal Democrats who squint at the future with their faces turned toward the past, and who feel no responsibility to the demands of the new time, that they are out of step with their Party.

Yes, the people of this country want a genuine choice this year, not a choice between two names for the same reactionary doctrine. Ours must be a party of liberal thought, of planned action, of enlightened international outlook, and of the greatest good to the greatest number of our citizens.

Now it is inevitable – -and the choice is that of the times — it is inevitable that the main issue of this campaign should revolve about the clear fact of our economic condition, a depression so deep that it is without precedent in modern history. …

… My program, of which I can only touch on these points, is based upon this simple moral principle: the welfare and the soundness of a Nation depend first upon what the great mass of the people wish and need; and second, whether or not they are getting it.

What do the people of America want more than anything else? To my mind, they want two things: work, with all the moral and spiritual values that go with it; and with work, a reasonable measure of security–security for themselves and for their wives and children. Work and security–these are more than words. They are more than facts. They are the spiritual values, the true goal toward which our efforts of reconstruction should lead. These are the values that this program is intended to gain; these are the values we have failed to achieve by the leadership we now have.

The New Deal:

A Speech delivered by

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Take a Moment

2012-01-30T00:05:00.000-08:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-01-30T00:01:00.000-08:00

The folly at the root of this foolish economy began with the idea that a corporation should be regarded, legally, as “a person.” But the limitless destructiveness of this economy comes about precisely because a corporation is not a person.

A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.

Unlike a person, a corporation does not age. It does not arrive, as most persons finally do, at a realization of the shortness and smallness of human lives; it does not come to see the future as the lifetime of the children and grandchildren of anybody in particular. It can experience no personal hope or remorse, no change of heart. It cannot humble itself.

It goes about its business as if it were immortal, with the single purpose of becoming a bigger pile of money.

The stockholders essentially are usurers, people who “let their money work for them,” expecting high pay in return for causing others to work for low pay.

- Wendell Berry on Corporate Personhood.

You Make Me Happy!

2012-01-29T00:05:00.000-08:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-01-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

From The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

At the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, on 3/31/1968.

~ ~ ~

Jesus told a parable one day, and he reminded us that a man went to hell because he didn’t see the poor.

His name was Dives. He was a rich man. And there was a man by the name of Lazarus who was a poor man, but not only was he poor, he was sick. Sores were all over his body, and he was so weak that he could hardly move. But he managed to get to the gate of Dives every day, wanting just to have the crumbs that would fall from his table. And Dives did nothing about it. And the parable ends saying, “Dives went to hell, and there were a fixed gulf now between Lazarus and Dives.”

There is nothing in that parable that said Dives went to hell because he was rich. Jesus never made a universal indictment against all wealth.

It is true that one day a rich young ruler came to him, and he advised him to sell all, but in that instance Jesus was prescribing individual surgery and not setting forth a universal diagnosis. And if you will look at that parable with all of its symbolism, you will remember that a conversation took place between heaven and hell, and on the other end of that long-distance call between heaven and hell was Abraham in heaven talking to Dives in hell.

Now Abraham was a very rich man. If you go back to the Old Testament, you see that he was the richest man of his day, so it was not a rich man in hell talking with a poor man in heaven; it was a little millionaire in hell talking with a multimillionaire in heaven. Dives didn’t go to hell because he was rich; Dives didn’t realize that his wealth was his opportunity. It was his opportunity to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother Lazarus.

Dives went to hell because he was passed by Lazarus every day and he never really saw him. He went to hell because he allowed his brother to become invisible. Dives went to hell because he maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum. Indeed, Dives went to hell because he sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty.

And this can happen to America, the richest nation in the world — and nothing’s wrong with that — this is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty.

What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.

No Comment Necessary

2012-01-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

Vigil

2012-01-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Dennis O'Driscoll

Life is too short to sleep through.

Stay up late, wait until the sea of traffic ebbs,

until noise has drained from the world

like blood from the cheeks of the full moon.

Everyone else around you has succumbed:

they lie like tranquillised pets on a vet's table;

they languish on hospital trolleys and friends' couches,

on iron beds in hostels for the homeless,

under feather duvets at tourist B&Bs.

The radio, devoid of listeners to confide in,

turns repetitious. You are your own voice-over.

You are alone in the bone-weary tower

of your bleary-eyed, blinking lighthouse,

watching the spillage of tide on the shingle inlet.

You are the single-minded one who hears

time shaking from the clock's fingertips

like drops, who watches its hands

chop years into diced seconds,

who knows that when the church bell

tolls at 2 or 3 it tolls unmistakably for you.

You are the sole hand on deck when

temperatures plummet and the hull

of an iceberg is jostling for prominence.

Your confidential number is the life-line

where the sedated long-distance voices

of despair hold out muzzily for an answer.

You are the emergency services' driver

ready to dive into action at the first

warning signs of birth or death.

You spot the crack in night's façade

even before the red-eyed businessman

on look-out from his transatlantic seat.

You are the only reliable witness to when

the light is separated from the darkness,

who has learned to see the dark in its true

colours, who has not squandered your life.

Ever Get A Feeling That Something's About to Happen?

2012-01-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart

2012-01-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Jack Gilbert

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.

from: The Great Fires, Poems 1982-1992.
Photo source.

OFF THE SHELF Challenge for 2012

2012-01-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

A good two thirds of my books are packed away right now, as I make this commitment. Mine is a household in flux, but I still have a large number of 'to be reads' at hand.

My goal is to read at least as many books in 2012 as I did in 2011 - 100 - and this puts me on the Hoarder level. It may take some ingenuity on my part, but I am determined.

I'm not a book blogger, but I hope to add a line or two about my time with each book.

If you are interested in joining the challenge as well, just click on the badge and you will be taken to the sign up page at Bookish Ardour, the sponsoring site.

MY LIST:

1.Cat of the Century – Rita Mae Brown
Sneaky Pie Brown is as amusing and entertaining as ever. And an old mystery is solved along with the new one. Although I am glad for Harry's good fortune and renewed happiness with husband Fair, I truly miss the old days of the post office and sweet rolls.

2. Cat Striking Back - Shirley Rousseau Murphy
As I sat reading this story about intelligent cats who talk with humans and help solve murders, (I hope I haven't given anything away) I was watching my cat figure out how to unlock and open our front door. He hasn't talked to me yet. But I'm not entirely convinced that he can't!

Bonds, tentative but real, are forming between the Clowder from the ruins and our heroes Joe, Dulcie, and Kit. This series always makes me smile.

10.

100.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-01-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

Art lives by reason of its function, which is to enable men to break free from their human condition, not by shirking it but by an act of possession. All art is a means to gain a hold on fate.

- André Malraux

Princesses of Tomorrow Are in for a Big Surprise!

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

I Haven't Thought of This Rhyme in Ages.

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

I don't remember where it was from,

what it was called, or if there is more to it.

Does anyone have any idea?

I eat my peas with honey

I've done it all my life

It makes the peas taste funny

But it keeps them on my knife

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-01-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

- Robert A. Heinlein

It Really Works! Honest!

2012-01-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Face To Face

2012-01-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

- Tomas Tranströmer

In February life stood still.
The birds refused to fly and the soul
grated against the landscape as a boat
chafes against the jetty where it’s moored.

The trees were turned away. The snow’s depth
measured by the stubble poking through.
The footprints grew old out on the ice-crust.
Under a tarpaulin, language was being broken down.

Suddenly, something approaches the window.
I stop working and look up.
The colours blaze. Everything turns around.
The earth and I spring at each other.

from: The Great Enigma. Copyright 1987.

Photo source.

Good Night, Miss Etta. Sweet Dreams

2012-01-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

Ballad

2012-01-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Sonia Sanchez


forgive me if i laugh 
you are so sure of love 
you are so young 
and i too old to learn of love.

the rain exploding 
in the air is love 
the grass excreting her 
green wax is love 
and stones remembering 
past steps is love, 
but you. you are too young 
for love 
and i too old.

once. what does it matter 
when or who, i knew 
of love. 
i fixed my body 
under his and went 
to sleep in love 
all trace of me 
was wiped away

forgive me if i smile 
young heiress of a naked dream 
you are so young 
and i too old to learn of love.

OUTDO YOURSELF Reading Challenge for 2012

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

In 2011, I read 100 books, with several sub-challenges. Because of a very full schedule, however, I did no reviews or recommendations.

My goal for 2012 is to keep the number steady but begin adding my personal reflections, at least a line, for each. I guess that puts me in the I'm on fire! level.

The way I have it planned - the reflections for any book with its own challenge will go on my page for that challenge, with a link here. For all others, the reflection itself will be placed on this page.

If you're interested in participating, just click the challenge badge and you will be magically whisked off to the sponsoring site, The Book Vixen. Best of luck to everyone participating. The way I see it, everyone who reads is a winner!

(Why yes, I am a Reading/ELA teacher. What makes you ask?)

MY LIST:

1.Cat of the Century – Rita Mae Brown

2. Cat Striking Back - Shirley Rousseau Murphy

3. Mile 81 - Stephen King
I read this one on my NookColor while sitting at the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble. There. Did I drop enough names?! Those who've been with me for a while might remember that the Nook was a present on my last birthday from my husband. I still love it. And B&N is my home away from home since the last book store closed in our town.

Now, about the story. It had the quick aggressiveness of campfire stories. Not much in the way of finesse, heavy in scare tactics. It wasn't my favorite King short story, but I still enjoyed it.

10.

100.

Dream Variations

2012-01-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
    Dark like me--
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance!  Whirl!  Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
    Black like me.

Why PIPA/SOPA is a BAD Idea

2012-01-18T00:05:00.000-08:00

More information from:

LIFEHACKER.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-01-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human.

It is always the same words telling the same lies.

And the fact that men accept this, that the people's anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble--yes, gamble--with a whole part of their life and their so-called 'vital interests'.

- Albert Camus, 1937.

Which Way?

2012-01-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

An Appropriate Campaign Time Poem?

2012-01-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

Compulsively Allergic to the Truth

by Jeffrey McDaniel

I'm sorry I was late.
I was pulled over by a cop
for driving blindfolded
with a raspberry-scented candle
flickering in my mouth.
I'm sorry I was late.
I was on my way
when I felt a plot
thickening in my arm.
I have a fear of heights.
Luckily the Earth
is on the second floor
of the universe.
I am not the egg man.
I am the owl
who just witnessed
another tree fall over
in the forest of your life.
I am your father
shaking his head
at the thought of you.
I am his words dissolving
in your mind like footprints
in a rainstorm.
I am a long-legged martini.
I am feeding olives
to the bull inside you.
I am decorating
your labyrinth,
tacking up snapshots
of all the people
who've gotten lost
in your corridors.

from: The King Philosophy

2012-01-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

TRIPLE EVILS

The Triple Evils of POVERTY, RACISM and MILITARISM are forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle. They are interrelated, all-inclusive, and stand as barriers to our living in the Beloved Community. ...

Poverty – unemployment, homelessness, hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, infant mortality, slums…

“There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we now have the resources to get rid of it. The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty … The well off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for ‘the least of these.”

Racism – prejudice, apartheid, ethnic conflict, anti-Semitism, sexism, colonialism, homophobia, ageism, discrimination against disabled groups, stereotypes…

“Racism is a philosophy based on a contempt for life. It is the arrogant assertion that one race is the center of value and object of devotion, before which other races must kneel in submission. It is the absurd dogma that one race is responsible for all the progress of history and alone can assure the progress of the future. Racism is total estrangement. It separates not only bodies, but minds and spirits. Inevitably it descends to inflicting spiritual and physical homicide upon the out-group.”

Militarism – war, imperialism, domestic violence, rape, terrorism, human trafficking, media violence, drugs, child abuse, violent crime…

“A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war- ‘This way of settling differences is not just.’ This way of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Source: “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Boston: Beacon Press, 1967.

- THE KING CENTER.

(emphasis mine)

This is the Voice I Hear today

2012-01-15T00:01:00.001-08:00

Still Here

by Langston Hughes

Been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done
Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
But I don't care!
I'm still here!

Another Cold, Clear Day in California

2012-01-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

Can't you read!

Source: SFBBO.

Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey

2012-01-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Hayden Carruth

Scrambled eggs and whiskey
in the false-dawn light. Chicago,
a sweet town, bleak, God knows,
but sweet. Sometimes. And
weren't we fine tonight?
When Hank set up that limping
treble roll behind me
my horn just growled and I 
thought my heart would burst.
And Brad M. pressing with the
soft stick and Joe-Anne
singing low. Here we are now
in the White Tower, leaning
on one another, too tired
to go home. But don't say a word,
don't tell a soul, they wouldn't
understand, they couldn't, never
in a million years, how fine,
how magnificent we were
in that old club tonight.

The Pomegranate

2012-01-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Eavan Boland

The only legend I have ever loved is
the story of a daughter lost in hell.
And found and rescued there.
Love and blackmail are the gist of it.
Ceres and Persephone the names.
And the best thing about the legend is
I can enter it anywhere.  And have.
As a child in exile in
a city of fogs and strange consonants,
I read it first and at first I was
an exiled child in the crackling dusk of
the underworld, the stars blighted.  Later
I walked out in a summer twilight
searching for my daughter at bed-time.
When she came running I was ready
to make any bargain to keep her.
I carried her back past whitebeams
and wasps and honey-scented buddleias.
But I was Ceres then and I knew
winter was in store for every leaf
on every tree on that road.
Was inescapable for each one we passed.
And for me.
                    It is winter
and the stars are hidden.
I climb the stairs and stand where I can see
my child asleep beside her teen magazines,
her can of Coke, her plate of uncut fruit.
The pomegranate!  How did I forget it?
She could have come home and been safe
and ended the story and all
our heart-broken searching but she reached
out a hand and plucked a pomegranate.
She put out her hand and pulled down
the French sound for apple and 
the noise of stone and the proof
that even in the place of death,
at the heart of legend, in the midst
of rocks full of unshed tears
ready to be diamonds by the time
the story was told, a child can be
hungry.  I could warn her.  There is still a chance.
The rain is cold.  The road is flint-coloured.
The suburb has cars and cable television.
The veiled stars are above ground.
It is another world.  But what else
can a mother give her daughter but such
beautiful rifts in time?
If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift.
The legend will be hers as well as mine.  
She will enter it.  As I have.
She will wake up.  She will hold
the papery flushed skin in her hand.
And to her lips.  I will say nothing.

The Alien

2012-01-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Greg Delanty

 I'm back again scrutinizing the Milky Way
          of your ultrasound, scanning the dark                        
                    matter, the nothingness, that now the heads say
          is chockablock with quarks & squarks,
gravitons & gravitini, photons & photinos. Our sprout,
   
who art there inside the spacecraft
               of your Ma, the time capsule of this printout,
               hurling & whirling towards us, it's all daft
          on this earth. Our alien who art in the heavens,
our Martian, our little green man, we're anxious
    
to make contact, to ask divers questions
          about the heavendom you hail from, to discuss
                    the whole shebang of the beginning&end,
          the pre-big bang untime before you forget the why
and lie of thy first place. And, our friend,

to say Welcome, that we mean no harm, we'd die 
          for you even, that we pray you're not here
                    to subdue us, that we'd put away
          our ray guns, missiles, attitude and share
our world with you, little big head, if only you stay.

Old Coat

2012-01-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Liam Rector

Dressed in an old coat I lumber
Down a street in the East Village, time itself

Whistling up my ass and looking to punish me
For all the undone business I have walked away from,

And I think I might have stayed 
In that last tower by the ocean,

The one I built with my hands and furnished
Using funds which came to me at nightfall, in a windfall....

Just ahead of me, under the telephone wires
On this long lane of troubles, I notice a gathering

Of viciously insane criminals I'll have to pass
Getting to the end of this long block in eternity.

There's nothing between us. Good
I look so dangerous in this coat.

Painting: Stephanie S. Smith.

Red Shoes

2012-01-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Honor Moore

all that autumn you step from the train

as if something were burning

something is burning

running across the green grass bare feet

that day death was only

what we lose in fall comes back in spring

something is burning

from the train you climb

smoke between the skyscrapers

Paris was so beautiful, the sky– 

all that autumn

then tears

Why do we do this again?

she turns to you in the kitchen

she puts her arms around you

she is wearing those red shoes

No Time to Read?

2012-01-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat.

After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered.

Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles.

It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt’s eventful life.

But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina.

I often think of that when I hear people say they haven’t time to read.

- David McCollough.

Everything Is Better With Cats

2012-01-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

Check out AbeBooks for more.

A Different Kind of POETRY Challenge

2012-01-08T00:00:00.007-08:00

This challenge is from The Written World & Regular Ruminations.

Instead of a readalong or a reading challenge, this is a blog-along with one goal: blog about poetry once a month.

Most of all, this is a laid-back way to get the book blogging community posting about poetry.

I post regularly.

I post things I love.

I post things that amuse or intrigue me.

I post things that force me to think.

I post things that I think might help others in some way.

However, I have purposely kept my own commentary to a minimum.

I have had little time to put together what I consider to be thoughtful,

insightful, and enlightening blog posts. But I would like to do more.

I'm hoping that this challenge will help by giving me a manageable goal. Well, I guess I'll find out soon enough.

1). Sign up link on regular rumination.
Some poetry suggestions if you need a push.

2). Post about poetry on your blog on the following dates:

January 31th / February 28th / March 27th / April 23rd / May 29th
June 26th / July 31st / August 28th / September 25th / October 30th
November 27th / December 18th

KINSEY MILHONE Reading Challenge for 2012

2012-01-08T00:00:00.006-08:00

I confess. I've read this entire series, except for the last one published, so this may be the easiest challenge I've ever taken on.

Please don't hate me.

Darlene's Book Nook is sponsoring this challenge, and I'd like to throw my support her way. Click on the badge to the left and go to her blog to sign up for the challenge.

My modest goal for this particular challenge is:

"V" is for Vengeance.

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN Book Challenge for 2012

2012-01-08T00:00:00.004-08:00

This challenge seemed intriguing to me, the premise that is. Brought to us by Booking in Heels, it offers a different way for me to push myself in directions I might not otherwise have taken. Simply click on the badge to the left for her sign up page and join the party.

Allan Quatermain from King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
Mina Harker from Dracula by Bram Stoker
Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne
Tom Sawyer from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rodney Skinner from The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells (kind of)
The Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
James Moriarty from The Final Problem by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

THE DARK TOWER Reading Challenge for 2012

2012-01-08T00:00:00.003-08:00

I started this series years ago and got bogged down somewhere in the middle, so when I saw this challenge on Leighanne's Lit, I jumped at the chance to get to the end of my journey.

The first six have been sitting on my shelf, but I'll need to find the last two before the end of the year.

Of course I will have to start reading over again - It's been a looooong time.

The books in the series are:

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982)
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987)
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991)
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997)
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003)
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004)
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004)
The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012)

I Found This Over At the Open Salon, and I Really Wanted to Laugh. I Really, really did.

2012-01-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

More to the point, I found it on another steve s's blog,

and it prompted a round of flasbacks.

Check him out; he's funny. And so are his cats.

You Are Old, My Employee, The Young Boss Said

With Apologies to

Lewis Carroll and Robert Southey

“You are old, My Employee,” the young Boss said,
   “And your beard has become very white;
And yet you show up every morning for work—
   Do you think, at your age, it is right?

“Your great age,” The Boss continued in fun,
   “I feared it might injure your creativity;
But now that I’m perfectly sure you have none,
   I need staff a bit nearer their nativity.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “your potential too flat
   For projects beyond the straight line;
Yet you act as a mentor to our most promising staff,
   With their respect, which by rights should be mine!”

“In my youth,” said The Employee, “I took to my work,
   And each day I increased knowledge deep”;
While in his mind ran the thought, “This is all for naught.
   It’s my last day to work for this creep.”

“We have talked for two minutes, and that is enough,”
   Said The Boss; “You have wasted our air!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
   Here’s a bag, pack your things, Now Downstairs!”