Categories
The Mystery of the Blue Dog
People who live on water know that voices carry, they can distinguish the sound of the lark from the wren, and know when to venture further out, or come closer to shore and pull back in. They live a life that ebbs and flows.
Mountain people have secrets they hold close and keep deep inside, you have to dig to get to know them. Dark woods swallow sound, pulling everything in and down. They live a life that is close to the ground.
Plains people see far and wide, they can calculate the distance to the horizon. They were the first to fly and the future know. They live life in the open and reap what they sow.
Like a fish out of water Thadeus—Tadd—passed his time on the plains flopping around and gasping for air. Used to a fluid environment, he felt parched and anchored. His ocean-blue eyes—deep and changing—constantly sought focus in the expanded vista but found only a slight color shift, an inconsequential blurring between earth and sky, leaving one indistinguishable from the other. And with nothing for his eyes to grab onto between here and there except Mary, that is where his eyes stayed, and happily so, as Mary was lovely and her voice melodic.
Categories
A CINDERELLA STORY
THE ENDURANCE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE’S JANE EYRE
“We do not separate into distinct causes this great and never-ending cause of the ignorant and the poor.”
This story is old. Perhaps originating in the 1st century, telling the tale of a young Greek slave girl who overcomes her miserable existence and becomes an Egyptian queen. Retold many times with the protagonist having many nationalities, the 17th-century version, Cendrillon (The Little Glass Slipper, 1697) by Charles Perrault is probably best known as it was the basis for the Disney movie, Cinderella. Perrault and Disney describe a young orphaned girl forced to serve her stepmother and stepsisters, but eventually rescued by a prince.
Similarly at the mercy of a powerful woman (an aunt instead of stepmother) Bronte’s Jane Eyer describes an impotent protagonist, an underdog, who navigates a world of obstacles with only her wits and strength of character to guide and protect her.
In the presentation of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (1816 – 1855) walks a fine line between offensiveness, and what would have been viewed as fantasy or fairy tale. Certain expectations of the reading public require the author’s considerations in any time period. Bronte’s ideas, influenced as they were by the prejudices of 19th century England, had to be presented in such a way as to ensure the credibility of her characters, as well as skirt the controversy to which her depictions (particularly of Jane’s headstrong nature) might give rise.
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The Raspberry Race
My new kids book! Please check it out ~ M Carroll
Jo and the School’s Out Squad discover friendship in their first adventure, The Raspberry Race. Jo gets schooled about being honest, but her biggest lesson is about human nature.
When 6th grader Jo Daniels gets into trouble for eating raspberries from her neighbor’s bush, she gets help from her friends Betsy, Tommy and Leonard, and discovers her neighbor isn’t who she thought she was after all.
This middle-school chapter book is filled with adventure and fun for children aged 9-12.
Also available from Anamcara Press The Tree Who Walked Through Time
Stan Herd is an artist and contributor to The Tree Who Walked Through Time, a children’s tree identification book available from Anamcara Press LLC.
Categories
privileged
ARE YOU PRIVILEGED?
Does success or failure depend on effort, energy, talent and skill? Can someone have all of these things and still not “make it?” What kinds of barriers keep people from attaining their goals?
Some say that the U.S. is a meritocracy – that folks do “make it” or not based on their own effort, energy, talent and skills, and maybe a little luck. Some believe that just about anybody has the opportunity to be successful in the U.S. today, it’s the American dream with our immigrant past, after all! But is it true, or are some people privileged?
Do some folks just have the advantage no matter how you slice it?
ARE YOU PRIVILEGED QUIZ
People are/should be up in arms! The actions of the 1% have led to the “late, great United States” and also systematic pillaging of the world. They are against nature – but no they are nature run rampant, as in a swarm of locusts set upon the land in numbers that decimate.
There. Now that I’ve said that, who are “they” and what should “we” do about “them?” (#BetsyDeVosShouldCleanSchoolLatrines.)
Right now we are experiencing the dichotomy of the struggle for freedom and the repression of freedom occurring simultaneously. But why would it be otherwise? We are at the Tipping Point.
There is a long history of corporate personhood — the bestowing by our judiciary of 1st and other constitutional (amendment) rights upon corporations.
And there is a long history of peoples’ struggle for freedom and rights in the US beginning with our Revolutionary War. The two are now pitted squarely against each other. Corporations currently are asserting their power. They want more. Of course, a corporation can’t speak (then how can it have rights and privileges like the ability to contribute to political parties!?) If a corporation can’t speak then WHO is behind what is going on?
Well, the Koch Bros and others, have together or separately, by orchestration or accident of greed, conspired to rid the people of the US of their power once and for all.
The 1st election since the Citizens United Supreme Court case gave a sweeping victory to Republicans supporting the corporate agenda. This agenda has been rolled out across the US since in various state legislations, including Kansas (K.S.A. 72-5413), preventing any “labor organization or professional employee organization or public employee organization to use dues, fees or any kind of deduction from a member’s paycheck for the purpose of engaging in political activities.”
Categories
Fluffy White Powder
Snow blanketed the town in quiet isolation. It covered the roadways and rooftops and treetops, even the magnificent climbing tree that shaded the Carroll’s tiny well-maintained home across from the grade school. Everything was covered with feet of fluffy white powder. Borne by the wicked winter wind, it had curled around corners to layer unevenly on window ledges, lapped over porch screens to create rippling patterns, and drifted into mounds that covered bushes and bicycles, burying whole cars under its weight. It covered Myrtle’s flowerbeds leaving only some tall stalks visible, outlined in glistening ice.
Sledding behind cars was prohibited, and so Bob, Art, Harold and others got out their skis. They gathered at the top of 14th Street hill, put their skis on and waited, throwing snowballs and shoving each other around to stay warm. They were waiting for the first likely, unsuspecting bumper to come their way.
Art pulled his cap down over his ears, rubbed gloved hands together, and grabbed onto the silver fender of a blue Oldsmobile sliding off on wobbly but confident skis. He guided his way nimbly along the edge of the road, slipping back behind the car to avoid heaps of snow, trash cans, and occasional pedestrians. The hill was considerably steeper than he’d expected. His scarf flapped in the wind like a kite tail as he shifted his weight expertly beside the Olds’. Art was fourteen and fast. But gaining speed wasn’t the hard part, slowing down was. At a T-intersection, he lost the car when it turned the sharp corner to the left and Art found himself continuing forward, flying.
He winced a bit now as he stretched, still sore, but he was the first one up as he usually was on cold mornings, up before anyone scratched a match to the cast iron to light the wood stove, when fingers of ice still tickled at the spine, encouraging a shiver. This morning was no exception. He nursed the cut that was sure to turn into a scar and remembered the impossibility of being airborne and the pain of landing as he scuttled into his jeans.
When we collided
sparks flew
it was difficult to tell the difference
between me and you
so alike we two
we both burn hot and
we take our time to cool
now we are as one
a new sun
for a bright and shining moment
then undone.
Fractal art by Jack Cleveland
Do not attend a hate rally! Instead, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center in 10 Ways to Fight Hate you should, “Hold a unity rally or parade to draw media attention away from hate.”
Rallies and marches held by the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups are protected under the First Amendment. If we are able to stop one group from gathering, then what groups would be prevented next? Rather than risk losing our rights under the First Amendment, “our efforts should focus on channeling people away from hate rallies.”
Categories
BLINDED BY AUTHORITY
Shhhhh!
Whisper your truth.
Walk softly by the tyrant
Tread lightly near the rulers of gold
Otherwise permanent silence!
Swallow your pride
Tuck in your wings
Yes sir no sir intone
Shhhhh!
Lest they hear you
Oh the fear
They have of truth
Cover your eyes
Disappear
Lay it out for few
Shhhhh!
Spoilers walk behind
Stabbing at inconsistencies
Stretching out fallacies
Foaming at the mouth
Shhhhh!
Cry quietly your wisdom
Lest they come for you
Cover your ears
Cover your eyes
Cover your mouth
Forget you know.