What You Learn by Swimming Upstream

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

~ Woodrow Wilson ~

Much Too Busy

...we're too busy singin' to put anybody down.

~ Monkees' theme song ~

One More Reason, Beside Downton Abbey, to Support PBS

You will still find more hours of in-depth news programming, investigative journalism and analysis on PBS than on any other outlet.

~ Gwen Ifill ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The cat's a shadow-cat, an edgeless blur.

~ Ciaran O'Driscoll from "The Shadow Cat" ~
Photo by Max xx.

But, It Doesn't Mean You Have to Exercise That Right

In America you have a right to be stupid--if you want to be.

~ John Kerry ~

Poetry Friday

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.

~ André Gide ~
What's not to love about this if you're a writer? It means you'll always have a job, and you're free to "borrow" from others! --KK

Knitting

It's like a woman's birthright to knit. It's primal. It's timeless. You don't need electricity to knit. You can do it with a candle, girls!

~ Tracey Ullman ~
Print by Mary Cassatt courtesy Library of Congress.

You Can't Have One Without the Other

To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd.

~ Wendell Berry ~

Art

Art is pattern informed by sensibility.

~ Herbert Read ~
"Hat Shop" by August Macke (1914), courtesy The Athenaeum.

Poet As Prognosticator

Opening of the baseball season: New York vs. Boston, c 1886

I see great things in baseball. It's our game--the American game.

~ Walt Whitman ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote (Women's History Month #31)

How do we know the Easter Bunny is a woman? Duh, chocolate!

~ Kurious Kitty ~
Happy Easter!


Photo © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Women's History Month #30

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.

~ Helen Keller ~

Poetry Friday (Women's History Month #29)

A poem is land found, as if for the first time. If I already knew what it would hold, I wouldn’t need the poem, and if what it holds were knowable by any other words or way, I wouldn’t need the poem.

~ Jane Hirshfield ~

Women's History Month #28

The best book, like the best speech, will do it all--make us laugh, think, cry and cheer--preferably in that order.

~ Madeleine Albright ~



Photo courtesy U.S. Department of State.

Women's History Month #27

Selectivity of mass extinction events is sometimes linked with body size, ecological constraints and competition, while other times it could be related to just pure luck of the survivors.

~ Olja Toljagić ~
Photo by Kentaro Ohno.

Women's History Month #26

Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.

~ Elizabeth I ~




Portrait by Steven van der Meulen, circa 1563.

Women's History Month #25

Those of us who have participated believe it's important to have a process where candidates have to interact with voters one-on-one. In New Hampshire, as in Iowa, there is a very engaged electorate that is involved, looks at all the candidates and questions them about what their vision is for running for president. That's important for the process.

~ Jeanne Shaheen ~



Photo courtesy www.shaheen.senate.gov.

Sunday's Kat Kwote (Women's History Month #24)

They calm me, these animals who could be wild but choose not to be, who go outside to kill and lounge around, then come home every day for the food I provide and for my touch.

~ Alison Hawthorne Deming ~
Photo courtesy The Marmot.

Women's History Month #23

Well, Warren Harding, I have got you the presidency. What are you going to do with it?

~ Florence Harding ~




Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday (Women's History Month #22)

All art is knowing when to stop.

~ Toni Morrison ~

Women's History Month #21

I think most artists create out of despair. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it's a painful, difficult search within.

~ Louise Berliawsky Nevelson ~
Photo courtesy Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

Women's History Month #20

We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?

~ Ellen Goodman ~

Women's History Month #19

"Well, I'm glad they like me," thought the Stuffed Elephant to himself, for just now he was not allowed to speak out loud or move around, as the Make Believe toys could do at certain times. But these times were when no eyes of boys, girls, men or women were looking.

~ Laura Lee Hope ~

Women's History Month #18

I don't think anybody anywhere can talk about the future of their people or of an organization without talking about education. Whoever controls the education of our children controls our future.

~ Wilma Mankiller ~
Photo by Pedula Man.

Sunday's Kat Kwote (Women's History Month #17)

And when the cat appeared he seemed to them of the size of a bullock; and this was his appearance—rapacious, panting, jagged-eared, snub-nosed, sharp-toothed, nimble, angry, vindictive, glare-eyed, terrible, sharp-clawed.

~ Lady Wilde from "Seanchan the Bard and the King of the Cats" ~

Women's History Month #16

I have hope because awareness and action are rising for women’s rights. A belief is growing that enough is enough.

But I am outraged because women and girls continue to suffer high levels of discrimination, violence, and exclusion. They are routinely blamed and made to feel shame for the violence committed against them, and they too often search in vain for justice.

~ Michelle Bachelet ~

Poetry Friday (Women's History Month #15)

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Women's History Month #14

You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way.


~ Lena Horne ~
Photo courtesy Movie-Fan.

Women's History Month #13

I am building a fire, and everyday I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match.

~ Mia Hamm ~





Photo courtesy >Johnmaxmena at en.wikipedia.

Women's History Month #12

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings.

~ Pearl S. Buck ~




Photo ©The Nobel Foundation.

Women's History Month #11

I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

~ Rosa Parks ~


Photo of new Rosa Parks statue courtesy PBS.

Sunday's Kat Kwote (Women's History Month #10)

And hold the freedom of their will
To roam, to live, to drink their fill

~ Victoria Sackville-West from "The Greater Cats" ~

Photo by allistair.

Women's History Month #9

 

Women must have an institutional voice and must occupy key roles. And not just to keep the peace and bring about reconciliation. We need women to play a role in every area of society. You can't eat peace.

~ Leymah Gbowee ~
Photo by aktivioslo.

Poetry Friday (Women's History Month #8)

Shall I speak like a poet, or run
     Into weak woman's tears for relief?

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning from "Only a Curl" ~

Women's History Month #7

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

~ Louisa May Alcott ~




Photo from Lives of Girls Who Became Famous by Sarah Knowles Bolton (1914).

Women's History Month #6

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
Portrait courtesy the White House.

Women's History Month #5

I think we should all work for equal suffrage, and I trust the time is not far distant when no man or woman will even admit that it was ever opposed in New Hampshire. I want New Hampshire to be the banner state of the East on the equal suffrage question.

~ Marilla Ricker ~


Image courtesy Dover Public Library.

Women's History Month #4

Why is a woman to be treated differently? Woman suffrage will succeed, despite this miserable guerilla opposition.

~ Victoria Woodhull ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote (Women's History Month #3)

flex and reflex of claws
gently pricking through sweater to skin
gently sustains their own tune

~ Denise Levertov from "The Cat As Cat" ~

Photo by surekat.

Women's History Month #2

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

~ Nora Ephron ~

Poetry Friday (Women's History Month #1)

To celebrate Women's History Month, I'll be sharing a quote from a woman each day of the month. Here's the first one:

There is only one opening:
yourself as the key.

~ Eve Merriam from "The Poem As a Door" ~

I Hope He's Right

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

~ Jimmy Carter ~
Photo by Shawn Hayes.

Yes, Go to the Library!

If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.

~ Frank Zappa ~

Everybody Sing!

It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry.

~ Joe Moore ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

...In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head.

~ Margaret Atwood from "February." ~

Photo by stychy.

The Truth

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

Poetry Friday

Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.

~ Bertolt Brecht ~





Photo by ho visto nina volare.

Faery Songs

Illustration by Edmund Dulac courtesy Project Gutenberg.

Happy World Day of Social Justice

I want my fair share--and that's ALL of it.

~ Charles Koch ~
I guess Mr. Koch won't be honoring this special day. To learn about World Day of Social Justice, click here.

Names

And so with all things: names were vital and important.

~ Algernon H. Blackwood ~

Happy President's Day!

Property as compared with humanity, as compared with the red blood in the American people, must take second place, not first place.

~ Woodrow Wilson ~



Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The organization of cats is musical; they are capable of giving many modulations to their voices and in the different passions which occupy them they use diverse tones.

~ F. A. Paradis de Moncrif ~

1805 engraving courtesy Library of Congress.

Common Sense

And for me, to live in fear of you and your unnecessary fears, that’s not Freedom, nor is that Liberty. A gun doesn’t make a fearful person brave, it only makes you a fearful person with a gun…and I can’t think of a worse combination in this society for the rest of us. That’s why I support treating a gun the way we treat owning a car or buying a box of Sudafed, like it may just be a big enough deal to have a few rules, since they have the power to end an innocent life.

More than 12,000 a year, to be more precise.

~ Vince Yanez ~

Poetry Friday

Poets write, I do believe, because they have to--it's something nothing else quite satisfies. One has to do it--compulsively.

~ Robert Creeley ~

Happy Valentine's Day to All!

Love is a human experience, not a political statement.

~ Anne Hathaway ~
Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

What is Art?

True Art is an organized piece of work that effectively communicates a genuine human experience.

~ Caleb Jacobo ~
13th century Chinese fan courtesy ibiblio.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Sorry, you'll probably have an earworm for the rest of the day. --KK

Valentine's Day Is Coming

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
      Till China and Africa meet,
             And the river jumps over the mountain
                  And the salmon sing in the street,

~ W. H. Auden ~

Poetry Friday

I could never, even as a child, see any good reason why the language of verse should be distorted almost out of recognition in order to be poetical.

~ Edwin Arlington Robinson ~





Photo courtesy Maine Historical Society.

Yes, We Do!

The audience likes to be taken on new journeys.

~ David Copperfield ~

Train Station

The energy in a train station is an odd combination of adrenaline and boredom; anticipation for the destination tempered by impatience at how long it's taking to get there.

~ Beth Novey ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Proverbial Wisdom

A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles.

~ Chinese proverb ~
Courtesy New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Not Quite Sure I Get This One!

I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.

~ Willa Cather ~




Photo courtesy the Willa Cather Archive.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.

~ Henry David Thoreau ~
Photo by katstan.

From "On the Grasshopper and Cricket"

The Poetry of earth is never dead.

~ John Keats ~
Photo by Striving to a Goal.

Poetry Friday

Most of the time, poetry enjoys the visibility of other minor cultural subcultures like chess or quilting.

~ Anita Diamant ~
Cover of The Patchwork Quilt, a book of poetry, courtesy Baylor University Libraries Digital Collections.