He Hit the Nail on the Head!

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

~ Barack Obama ~
It's about time someone put the hawks on notice. --KK

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.

Poetry Friday

You have to keep affirming it, and bringing yourself to it. You have to keep hoping that it will move the mountain.

~ Ntoxake Shange ~
Print by Hiroshige, courtesy Library of Congress.

Archaeology

Archaeology is the peeping Tom of the sciences.

~ Jim Bishop ~

Laugh!

Mirth is the sweet wine of human life.

~ Ward Beecher ~
Image courtesy openclipart.

But, Is It Brain Science?

Like the old Italian saying goes, "It ain't rocket surgery."

~ Nadia Giosia ~

Amen

Ceremonies are important. But our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops, and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well.

~ Jennifer M. Granholm ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Correction: Sunday's Kat Chicken Kwote

What have the chickens taught me? If you’re a creative person, you need a creative outlet only slightly less than you need food and water.

~ Doug Savage ~
Many thanks to Doug Savage for making me smile every morning when his Savage Chickens sticky note comes into my inbox.

Love

Take away love and our earth is a tomb.

~ Robert Browning ~




Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Poetry Friday

Poet

To clothe the fiery thought
In simple words succeeds,
For still the craft of genius is
To mask a king in weeds.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Now You Know

CFLs produce light differently than incandescent bulbs. In an incandescent, electric current runs through a wire filament and heats the filament until it starts to glow. In a CFL, an electric current is driven through a tube containing argon and a small amount of mercury vapor. This generates invisible ultraviolet light that excites a fluorescent coating (called phosphor) on the inside of the tube, which then emits visible light.

~ energystar.gov ~

Artists

Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.

~ Al Hirschfeld ~




Photo by Carl Van Vechten, courtesy Library of Congress.

Reading

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer ~
Print courtesy Library of Congress.

A Silly Simile

...facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away.

~ Dorothy L. Sayers ~
"Free run" by Petras Gagilas.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Cat yodeling has many advantages.

~ An Engineer ~

A Realist

The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.

~ Bob Marley ~

Poetry Friday

Art must take reality by surprise.

~ Francoise Sagan ~
The painting by Childe Hassam, "Flagstone Sidewalk, Portsmouth, New Hampshire" (1916), courtesy The Athenaeum.

We Are!

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

~ Mark Twain ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

The Appearance

A painter paints the appearance of things, not their objective correctness, in fact he creates new appearances of things.

~ Ernst Ludwig Kirchner ~
Kirchner painting courtesy Wikipedia.

Movies

You can map your life through your favorite movies, and no two people's maps will be the same.

~ Mary Schmich ~




Image courtesy openclipart.

Stretch...

As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.

~ Joyce Maynard ~
Image courtesy openclipart.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

~ Henri, le Chat Noir ~

We Have An Obligation

We have an obligation to make things beautiful. Not to leave the world uglier than we found it, not to empty the oceans, not to leave our problems for the next generation. We have an obligation to clean up after ourselves, and not leave our children with a world we've shortsightedly messed up, shortchanged, and crippled.

We have an obligation to tell our politicians what we want, to vote against politicians of whatever party who do not understand the value of reading in creating worthwhile citizens, who do not want to act to preserve and protect knowledge and encourage literacy. This is not a matter of party politics. This is a matter of common humanity.

~ Neil Gaiman ~

Poetry Friday

I wanted to conform but I couldn't so I wrote my poetry.

~ William Carlos Williams ~
Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Mother

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.

~ Victor Hugo ~

What?

I said that if an alien came to visit, I'd be embarrassed to tell them that we fight wars to pull fossil fuels out of the ground to run our transportation. They'd be like, "What?"

~ Neil deGrasse Tyson ~

Priorities

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

~ Joseph Addison ~




Image courtesy NYPL Digital Gallery.

Diversity

For children, diversity needs to be real and not merely relegated to learning the names of the usual suspects during Black History Month or enjoying south-of-the-border cuisine on Cinco de Mayo.

~ John Ridley ~
There is a long-overdue push to bring more diversity to children's publishing. I recommend spending some time at this site. --KK

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Thinking

If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking.

~ George S. Patton ~




Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

I think this is true for all artists. My senses are very important to me.

~ Sharon Olds ~