Shared love

I thought I'd jump the photo queue and post some pictures from yesterday, the day after our almost-blizzard (apparently we didn't have strong enough sustained winds to qualify for an actual, factual blizzard according to some arbitrary meteorological definition.

I also wanted to share a wonderful "On being" program that included an interview with the late gospel singer Joe Carter. My favorite part if the interview: ""Mr. Carter: You know, I think what we're talking about [is] human suffering and how do we survive when the worst happens? What are the mechanisms? And I think that African-Americans have shown the world, and other peoples have done it, too. Other peoples are doing it all the time, and it's the same process. It doesn't matter who the people are. It doesn't matter whether the song is an actual song of notes and music or whether it's the spirit of a people expressed in some other way, but you'll find, for example, when I sing these songs, I can sing "Motherless Child" in Siberia; they know what it means. They've been through hell. I can go to Scotland and Ireland and Wales and sing these. They understand the sentiment.

Here is the full transcript and the link to mp3 files of the songs (that they encourage you to download & share).

My favorite lyric that he sang was "When I come to the end of this road
And I lay down this old heavy load,
Let the love that I've shared speak for me."

Thank you for being in my life and for the love that you've shared with me.

10/10/10 and the Christian Taliban

Pix today from 10.Oct.2010. One of which shows the ecumenical household of at least 1 house in the neighborhood. The other two of dahlias in our garden. The bulbs of which, of course, are now safely dug up & stored (safely, we hope) for the winter.




I thought you might be interested in Frank Rich's response to the recent Christian Taliban's (my description of this yahoo who raised a stink of the Smithsonian exhibition, sight unseen, with the complicit-by-their-silence Smithsonian Board, and not-so-silent supporters in Congress) attack on the National Portrait Gallery's “Hide/Seek.” The show, whose subtitle is "Difference and Desire in American Portraiture"

For the first time since 1979 (at least according to Andy) our house was without a cat in it last night. Not to worry, Potter's not dead, she's just in the hospital for an overnight thyroid screening. Turns out she has early hyperthyroidism (no surprise given her behavior recently). So we have to decide on one of three treatment options - radioactive iodine (with concomitant having to flush her poop, avoid prolonged exposure for 2 weeks), a week-long stint @ the hopital), surgery (with it's related hospital stay), or pills for the rest of her life (which given her temperament would be difficult at best). The vet says we've caught it early & it only involves one of the 2 glands so far. And us on retirement incomes. Oi vey.

Off soon for an Alexander lesson. 27F "feels like" 16F heading all the way up to 32F so the widget warns, with nary a snowflake in sight until at least Sunday. :|

Bill Moyers @ BU

Inaugural event of the Howard Zinn memorial lecture series.
Video is here
Transcript here

Most chilling: "On . . . "thinkprogress.com" - you can find out how the multi-billionaire Koch brothers - also big oil polluters [er producers] and Tea Party supporters - are recruiting "captains of industry" to fund the right-wing infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks and media outlets. . . Among the right-wing luminaries who showed up among Koch's ‘secretive network of Republican donors' are two Supreme Court Justices: Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. That's right: 2 of the 5 votes [in the recent Citizens United decision] to enable the final corporate takeover of government came from justices who were present as members of the plutocracy hatched their schemes for doing so."

Reminds me of the scariest photo (at least for moi) in the Ann Frank museum - that of the German Supreme Court Justices pledging allegiance to Hitler. If members of our Supreme Court are in bed with these folks, what hope have we?

Second most chilling: "The Koch brothers have contributed significantly to efforts to stop the Affordable Care Act - the health care reforms - from taking effect. Justice Clarence Thomas has obviously been doing some home schooling, because his wife Virginia claims those reforms are "unconstitutional," and has founded an organization that is fighting to repeal them. Her own husband on the Supreme Court may one day be ruling on whether she's right or not ("Play the cards fair, Reuben; I know what I dealt you.") There's more: The organization Virginia Thomas founded to kill those health care reforms -- also a goal of the Koch brothers, remember -- got its start with a gift of half a million dollars from an unnamed source, and is still being funded by donors who can't be traced."

How can Judge Thomas possibly claim impartiality if/when these cases to repeal the health care law come before him when his own wife seeks to undermine them?

On a lighter note - the final performance of the Nutcracker went fairly well - amazing what a little subdividing will do to help sort out the fingers. This AM I have to bring the car in for an oil change & hope they can fix the review mirror on the passenger side - it flaps in the wind, which makes seeing anything in it problematic at best. Then off to tootle & begin to get the Tchaikovsky (yes, again) Symph. 2 ready for rehearsals in January.

Mom memories

Do you remember the choir room with its big mirror on one wall & the robes on hangers on the opposite one? Do you remember the boot box in the front hallway? Happy birthday, Jenny!

Happy St. Nicholas Day

The traditional gift-giving day in Holland. Is it me, or does the saint look just a tech (rhymes with "fetch") gay in the Wikipedia article? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas Must be the lipstick & eyeliner.







Photos today from 5, 7, and 8.Oct.2010 including a late rose, a pumpkin picnic, pink flamingos (in Dorchester? Who'da thunk?), October sky en route to the T, a Harvard yard shot & the T sign.

Sunny but (Sunny butt? Who has a sunny butt?) 29F out now, feels like 17 so maybe I'll wait for my toddle. Heading up all the way to 36F so the weather widget warns me. No snow in sight. Shoulder not twinging quite so much. Off to tootle.