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It’s Time To SPEAK OUT!

Filosofa's Word

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma-Lazarus Emma Lazarus

The above is the text of Emma Lazarus’ poem, The New Colossus.  She wrote the poem in 1883 to raise money for the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty, and in 1903, the poem was cast onto a bronze…

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our attitudes towards experience

Peedeel's Blog

There are books which we read early in life, which sink into our consciousness and seem to disappear without leaving a trace. And then one day we find, in some summing up of our life and our attitudes towards experience, that their influence has been enormous.

Anais Nin
On Truth and Reality
In favour of the Sensitive Man

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I assure you, medieval people bathed.

A wonderful blog I just discovered. If you’re into history like I am, you’ll give this a read!

Going Medieval

I can’t believe I have to write this down right now, but my dear friends, medieval people bathed regularly.

Yes. I assure you. I am very serious. It is true.

In fact, medieval people loved a bath and can in many ways be considered a bathing culture, much in the way that say, Japan is now. Medieval people also very much valued being clean generally in an almost religious way.

This is not to say that getting clean was as easy for medieval people as it is for us now. But medieval people were very clever and had ways of getting around that.

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National Book Lovers’ Day!

I could not live without books. I have a monthly book budget. Yes, I do go to the local library but I hate giving the books back so buying books I love is a necessity 🙂

witchlike

Are you a reader? Are you an obsessive reader?  Do you become enmeshed in the other worlds of fantasy, futuristic sci-fi or dystopian societies? Do you like heady romances, frightening horror, or historical recreations? Perhaps you like thought provoking non-fiction, or the vicarious thrill of a good biography.  If so, you are in luck. Today, August 9th, is National Book Lovers Day!

While the nay-sayers keep trying to convince us that the art of reading is dead, book publishing and its various forms continue to thrive. And why wouldn’t it? Ever since the dawn of time, humankind has loved story.

The Need to Read 

Storytelling has always been a part of human culture. Some scientists believe as far as 60,000 years ago our ancestors, the Neanderthals, were making their own crude attempts at it.

Cave painting was perhaps the first form of story telling. It can be dated back to…

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Thoughts from El Paso

A Must Read

MARILYN R. GARDNER

“The fear, bigotry, and hatred within us is what we often have to fear the most.“

Friends – One of our dear friends, Sami DiPasquale, and a former student from the Middle East Studies Program that my husband started many years ago, lives and works in El Paso. He loves the community deeply and recently wrote a beautiful and challenging post about the grief the community is experiencing. I am honored to post this on Communicating Across Boundaries.

I don’t know how to express my grief from these last couple of days. Our communities in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez are deeply hurting and in shock. My family and our team of coworkers are safe, but we also know that many in our community are just one or two steps removed from victims of the massacre that took place at a nearby Walmart. One of our coworkers…

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Hey Congress, Do Something

damn straight

First Draft

I just: 

During the goal celebration after he scored in today’s D.C. United-Philadelphia Union match, Union midfielder Alejandro Bedoya picked up a pitch-side microphone and said into it,“Hey Congress, do something, now! End gun violence!”

“Congress” isn’t going to do shit. THE DEMOCRATS have been passing bills and urging action since THE DEMOCRATS banned assault weapons in the first goddamn place. Republicans are holding hearings about how anime porn makes you violent or something, this morning, about how mental illness is to blame, like my crazy ass can shoot you with a trigger lock on. Hey Congress. Are you kidding me.

If you want “Congress” to do something, what you really want is REPUBLICANS to do something. To pass the bills in the Senate that Dems have passed in the House. To support the prevention of gun violence through common sense shit like “let us perhaps not give you…

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The Four C’s Of Blogging

Great advice here!

Fractured Faith Blog

I keep getting asked what is the secret to successful blogging. Which baffles me as folk seem to be suggesting I’m a successful blogger. I don’t see it that way at all as there are many, many better writers than me out there in the bloggersphere. But for what it’s worth here are my two cents. You can take from it what you regard as useful and ignore the rest. These thoughts are just my personal opinions.

1. Consistency

I blog every day. That’s my personal choice. I realise that doesn’t suit everyone due to other commitments but if you are serious about building a successful blog you should get into the habit of posting on a regular basis. If you propose to blog every day, every other day or 2-3 times a week, your readers will know when to expect new material from you.

There’s nothing more frustrating than…

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