Issues? Always!

With any tween, you have issues, from what they are going to wear to school, to how do you get them to speak politely, to how regularly they lose their contact lenses.

~ Marcia Gay Harden ~

Yes!

Our society spends a lot of money on prison bars. For the sake of our kids, let's invest in monkey bars.

~ Darell Hammond ~
Photo by Marjory Collins (1942), courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The 10-pound, 6-ounce cat would become the nighttime warden at the Original L.A. Flower Market, making sure rodents and other vermin didn't get out of hand. He's part of a group of tough cats recruited by an animal rights nonprofit to find homes in places that could use their hard-scrabble qualities. Along with another cat named DeNiro, Pacino would prowl the Italian side of the flower market.

~ Jerome Campbell ~
Photo © Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times.

Tickled Pink...and Purple and Blue and Green and...

Poetry Friday

Literature, like magic, has always been about the handling of secrets, about the pain, the destruction, and the marvelous liberation that can result when they are revealed. If a writer doesn't give away secrets, his own or those of the people he loves, if he doesn't court disapproval, reproach and general wrath, whether of friends, family or party apparatchiks...the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth.

~ Michael Chabon ~

Curiosity

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

~ Albert Einstein ~

Some Things You Just Gotta Do

Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.

~ Alma Gluck ~

Butterflies

In popular esteem the butterflies among the insects are what the birds are among the higher animals—the most attractive and beautiful members of the great group to which they belong.

~ Clarence M. Weed ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The airs he assumed! The graces he put on! The arts he practised! The condescension of his smile! The upward tilt of his nose! The twirl of his moustachios! The defiant angle of his tail!

~ Ada M. Marzials from More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme ~
Photo by Romana Klee.

Such a Sad Week...

The hateful killing of nine people praying inside a church is a horrific reminder that, while we have made significant progress in advancing civil rights in this country, we are far from eradicating racism. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and their congregation.

~ Bernie Sanders ~

Poetry Friday

Write what should not be forgotten.

~ Isabel Allende ~





Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Equality of Rights

The principle of equality of rights underlies all human sentiments, and its assertion by any individual or class must rouse antagonism, unless conceded. This has been the battle of the ages, and will be until all forms of slavery are banished from the earth. Philosophers, historians, poets, novelists, alike paint woman the victim ever of man's power and selfishness.

~ from the "Introduction" to History of Woman Suffrage, edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage ~

Be Bold!

The only difference between an experienced knitter and new knitter is that the experienced knitter makes bigger mistakes faster. Be bold; there are no terrible consequences in knitting.

~ Stephanie Pearl-McPhee ~




Graphic courtesy openclipart.

Always at War

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. So the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.

~ Umberto Eco ~

To Combat Hunger

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

~ Mother Teresa ~
Image courtesy Internet Archive.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Zu des Müllers Haus,
Aber da war Niemand drinnen
Nur die Katze schaute aus!

The cat looked out from the miller's house,
No one was in, not even a mouse

~ German children's song ~

Photo courtesy Harvard Library.

Slow Down!

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

~ Mahatma Gandhi ~

Poetry Friday

And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.

~ Edgar Lee Masters, "Fiddler Jones" from Spoon River Anthology ~

Dessert

Absolutely eat dessert first. The thing that you want to do the most, do that.

~ Joss Whedon ~
Kate Greenaway illustration courtesy NY Public Library Digital Gallery.

Life Is a Game?

In life, as in chess, forethought wins.

~ Charles Buxton ~






Photo courtesy NY Public Library Digital Collections.

Neither Have I

I've never run into a person who yearns for their middle school days.

~ Jeff Kinney ~

Family History

Knowing more about family history is the single biggest predictor of a child's emotional well-being. Grandparents can play a special role in this process, too.

~ Bruce Feiler ~
1844 daguerreotype courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

If you want to reassure your cat, stare at your cat, then very deliberately and very slowly blink. Like that. The cat will also deliberately, slowly blink back at you, and I almost guarantee that she will start to purr. That's a feline reassurance.

~ Walter Murch ~

Work

The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic--in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea--known to medical science is work.

~ Thomas Szasz ~
[But, it can also kill you! --KK]

Poetry Friday

A poem need not have a meaning and like most things in nature often does not have.

~ Wallace Stevens ~

The Sooner, the Better

I think what you're seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they've got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

~ Barack Obama ~

Zoo Animals

Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild.

~ Jack Hanna ~
Card courtesy NYPL Digital Gallery.

A Fair Question

How can our kids really understand the moral complexities of being alive if they are not allowed to engage in those complexities outdoors?

~ Richard Louv ~

It Must Be Good--She's a Great Writer!

Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.

~ Jane Smiley ~