Society
- Written by: Deborah Baron
- Category: Society
Dear Michelle,
I am writing to ask you, how do we go high? Your powerful speech on July 26, 2016 continues to surface in my mind, especially when I hear and see bullying, hate speech, insults and fighting. Because I am not doing a very good job of it. When you first said these words it seemed so easy, ‘just go higher, don’t stoop to the level of a bully, just do be better, act better...’ But it’s really, really, frickin’ hard!
- Written by: Bonnie Bertelson
- Category: Society
In the midst of the entire BS that is our political reality, life goes on. People have to go to work; have to navigate through traffic jams; have to feed their families; have to play with their children and help them with homework; have to deal with illness and mounting medical bills; have to bury loved ones and cope with their absence; have to struggle with debt and stress.
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: Society
For just short of a century, The Braille Institute of America has been a beacon and shelter for adults and children born without sight, or later deprived thereof in a variety of ways and degrees. Apart from inducing geniality among those of similar experience, the Braille Institute also offers instruction in a plethora of useful skills and knowledge. The teaching of Braille reading and writing remains its basic raison d’etre. A free, now-digital library system, in conjunction with the National Library Service, is a veritable treasure for those deprived of the ability of reading the written word. Both Tom Hughes and I counted ourselves among the denizens of the beautiful San Diego Braille Institute facility in the part of San Diego known as La Jolla.
- Written by: Deborah Baron
- Category: Society
Sadly, this follow up to my initial reports on working in my local Democratic Central Committee will not be an optimistic or hopeful story because I feel like Floki, one of the main characters in the TV Series Vikings who is also an historical person and the first Norseman to deliberately sail to Iceland.
- Written by: Deborah Baron
- Category: Society
We’ve been busy recently talking with a group of people we hoped we wouldn’t have to: Tree Removal Contractors. Sadly we have about 15 trees that need to be removed from our property, all of them over 200 year’s old and over 100 feet tall. To quote one contractor, “Your trees aren’t dying- they’re DEAD!” It happened so quickly, at least in our eyes it did. In the spring they were green but 3 months later they are completely brown. We have been bombarded with the infamous Pine Bark Beetle. It turns out there was not much we, as a couple of homeowners, could have done to prevent it but there is something we, as a human race, may have been able to do, unfortunately we didn’t heed the Lorax’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lorax or the scientists warnings.
- Written by: Doug Matthews
- Category: Society
My big brother Marc enlisted me one year in a project to fix Christmas, one that was proving to be the worst of our lives.
He was the kid who knew how to get things, how to build things, to catch things and to fix things, while I usually served as his assistant in his various projects. I would chum the hole, while he caught the fish. I passed the boards and nails, while he built the forts and tree houses. I was the dreamer, the drawer of spaceships, the looker-outer of windows. He figured things out and fixed everything broken. He studied problems, with furrowed brow; I gazed blankly at the roiling clouds.
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: Society
In Puerto Rican parlance, and a derivative of the indigenous language and Spanish, the island is known as, “Borinquen” or “Borinquén.” Puerto Ricans, in turn, call themselves, “Borinqueños,” “Borincanos” or “Borícuas.”
“Lamento Borincano” is a plaintive song that describes how Puerto Rico fared in the economically depressive state into which it was thrust after it became a ward of the U.S., as a result of the Spanish-American War. One of Puerto Rico’s most popular songs, it was penned by the island’s prolific composer Rafael Hernández (1892-1965). Hernández, a Puerto Rican with obvious African roots, was a longtime resident of New York City. There, undisturbed by economic and other encumbrances that befell the island as a result of becoming a U.S. prize of war, he was able undisturbedly to compose a variety of musical elegies dedicated to his beloved Borinquén.
- Written by: Deborah Baron
- Category: Society
Black and White is a beautiful thing.
Here we are again, fighting among ourselves about race. Black people are angry. White people are angry. The president who is supposed to LEAD has exposed himself as clearly in favor of White Supremacy. We had a half Black, half White president and some people lost their minds because he wasn't all White. Aren't we tired of fighting among ourselves? I certainly am. It wasn't bad enough that we fought a civil war about Slavery (and yes the Civil War was about Slavery). How long are we going to label each other and argue about what we look like? Beauty is skin deep and skin comes in so many glorious colors and shades. This is nothing new and yes, it has been going on for millennium which is exactly why it’s absurd we haven’t stopped fighting about it.
As a kid, living in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, I heard the term “niggersandspics” so often I thought it was a single word. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but because of the way people (whites, Jews, Italians, Irish, Poles, etc) used it, I knew it was not complimentary.
