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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Toast, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 15 of 15
1. Toastworthy Teens - Ikea Johnson

Ikea Johnson, Lifesaver

It could’ve been an episode on What Would You Do? On Ikea Johnson’s walk home from work, she encountered 2 women screaming and crying over a 3rd lying on the ground. The victim, who has Downs syndrome, had tripped on the sidewalk, fallen and hit her head, and now lay unconscious and not breathing in a pool of her own blood.

Without hesitation, Ikea ordered the two friends to call 9-1-1 and run into a nearby building for a defibrillator. Ikea then performed chest compressions and breath checks until paramedics arrived. I’m not sure which is more unbelievable – that Ikea is only 16 years old, or that, after performing the heroic feat, she just walked home to finish her homework as if nothing had happened!

Her guidance counselor, however, wasn’t surprised at all, noting that “She has that cool, calm demeanor that reacts to the toughest situations as if she was a seasoned professional.” In fact, everyone in Ikea’s life sings the praises of the varsity cheerleader and honor student, saying she’s a “model student,” “very rare jewel,” and “breath of fresh air.” One of her teachers added, “With students like Ikea, one does not worry about the future of our citizenry. We are all in better hands with young adults like Ikea Johnson.”

I completely agree. :)

For a good FAQ on CPR, visit:
http://kidshealth.org/kid/watch/er/cpr.html


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2. Toastworthy Teens - Grant Wholey

  Grant Wholey, Tourette Syndrome Youth Ambassador

Grant Wholey is the kind of big brother I’ve always wished I had. When the 17-year-old recognized his 11-year-old brother was reaching an age that he himself particularly struggled with, Grant decided to do what he could to make life easier for Kevin. 

You see, both boys have Tourette Syndrome (TS), meaning they have to deal with not only multiple uncontrollable verbal and physical tics, but also the stares and criticisms of people who don’t understand their plight. Grant’s tics were so severe in middle school that he found himself unable to even read, write, or do homework, and he was concerned his brother would run into similar hurdles. So Grant, who also wants to also “help his brother in a greater way by helping to stop bullying and break myths surrounding TS,” joined the Tourette Syndrome Youth Ambassador program, where he will be “equipped with resources and tools to spread education on the disorder in schools and other community groups.” (As part of the program, he will also speak to Congress as an advocate for TS research.)

I think Kevin, the Tourette community, and our society as a whole are lucky to have guys like Grant!

To educate yourself about Tourette Syndrome, visit:

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3. Toastworthy Teens - Karina Gadea


Karina Gadea, Operation Smile

Most people are aware of the Operation Smile organization and its mission to provide corrective surgeries for kids with facial deformities, as well as give presentations on relevant health topics, in underprivileged countries. 

But what you may not know (I didn’t) is that many teens also serve on these goodwill missions. Teens like Karina Gadea, who was selected from her high school’s Operation Smile club to bring smiles and knowledge to the kids of Kenya. 

Karina’s team, in which her role was to give “interactive presentations on topics including burn care and prevention, nutrition, dental care and oral rehydration,” performed 128 surgeries on their 12-day trip!

See the results of Karina’s and other Operation Smiles here:
http://www.operationsmile.org/our_work/index.html


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4. Toastworthy Teens - Ashton Canada

Ashton Canada, UniqueModz
 
When 16-year-old Ashton Canada was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and had to be home-school for a year, he didn’t just play a lot of video games; he started fixing them as well. What started off with his researching how to solve an Xbox problem that many of his friends were experiencing, quickly evolved into customizing consoles – adding plexiglass windows to reveal the inner workings of the system, then adding lights and professional-quality paint. 30 customization orders in a week told Ashton that it was time to start his own company, and voila! UniqueModz was born. 

These days, serious business owner Ashton has little time to play; he’s “constantly updating the website, YouTube channel and social networks, talking to sponsors and making sure everyone is happy.” His father describes Ashton’s work ethic as “just unbelievable,” and Ashton’s mother is so impressed by her son having “done it pretty much all himself. He’s self-sustaining.” Given that Ashton’s now taking a business entrepreneurship to see “what [I’m] doing right and what [I] can improve on,” I think we can be sure he’s only begun a unique career. ;)

You can see Ashton’s creations here:
http://www.uniquemodz.com

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5. Toastworthy Teens - Kendall Ronzano

Kendall Ronzano, Nerd Girl Homes
 
 
The house 16-year-old Kendall Ronzano is building may be tiny, but her heart is tremendous. The California teen is channeling her life-long love of building into the construction of a 117 sq. ft. Lusby model portable home

Kendall, deeply affected by both the homelessness she sees in her own town as well as the global destruction that has taken the homes of so many in recent years, plans to either donate the completed house to a deserving recipient, or to raffle it off and donate the proceeds to charity. 

She credits her parents for having always encouraged her to “dream big” – I’d say they gave her the perfect foundation on which to build an inspiring life. :)
 
Follow Kendall’s progress on her site:
nerdgirlhomes.wordpress.com


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6. Toastworthy Teens: Jessica Markowitz


Jessica Markowitz, Richard's Rwanda


When Jessica Markowitz was in the 6th grade, a Rwandan man named Richard stayed with her family and told them about the horrific 1994 genocide in his country. Jessica, who’s favorite quote is: “When you educate a girl, you educate a community,” was particularly shocked to learn that many Rwandan girls couldn’t afford to go to school, and, as the daughter of an activist, knew she could do something about it. 

Jessica’s foundation, Impuwe Richard’s Rwanda, has since evolved from middle-school car-washes and bake sales to selling apparel and writing grant proposals to fund support for more than 7 different Rwandan schools. In between taking the SATs and managing the many other challenges of high school, Jessica is currently working to build the Rwandan students a much-needed science center, and several other members have formed more chapters to continue to grow the youth-led organization. 

See their work in action here:
www.richardsrwanda.org



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7. Toastworthy Teens: Michael Lake & Justin Loria




Michael Lake and Justin Loria, sick of witnessing the curse words and middle-finger raising amongst their peers, decided to offer an alternative. Yup, their self-launched clothing line, LL Clothing Co., sells shirts, hoodies, and dog bandanas emblazoned with the “hang-loose” gesture and the word “HUAAA,” which stands for Help Us Avoid All Anger

They hope that seeing their logo will make people pause before swearing or flipping someone the bird, and ultimately choose instead to curl their hands into the hang-loose sign and yell, “Hoo-aah!” Yes, it may sound a little goofy at first, but, as Michael says, “When you’re agitated and think about HUAAA, you can’t be mad at anything anymore.”

Sounds good to me. :)

You can find Michael and Justin’s HUAAA merchandise at:
http://llclothing.spreadshirt.com



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8. Toastworthy Teens; Sam Dutt


 Sam Dutt, Congressional Awardee
 

California teenager Bhaskar “Sam” Dutt was recently presented with the Congressional Award’s Bronze Medal, and yes, that is as impressive as it sounds; the medal is the United States Congress’ award for young Americans (aged 14 to 23) who combine their desire to help their communities with their eagerness to take on new challenges.

14-year-old Sam has logged close to 200 hours at Father Joe’s Village, Rady Children’s Hospital, Feeding America of San Diego, the YMCA, and Saikat (a non-profit organization that promotes Bangali culture in San Diego), as well as trail-building with his Boy Scout Troup. Not one to rest on his laurels, Sam has also earned his second-degree black belt, plays guitar in a local band, and is now close to achieving the next level of Congressional Awards – the Silver Medal – and plans to go for the Gold. 

You, too, can achieve these honors; see how at:
http://congressionalaward.org/index.php

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9. Toastworthy Teens: Kevin Lunsmann

 Kevin Lunsmann, Jungle Escapist

It’s hard to imagine a more frightening situation than being kidnapped by Al Qaeda mercenaries while on vacation. That’s precisely what happened to Kevin Lunsmann last year in the Philippines, and the 14-year-old from Virginia not only survived, but in fact rescued himself. 

Kevin was taken hostage along with his mom and cousin by a dozen armed men who stormed their resort in the middle of the night and took them to a remote island. Held captive for 5 months – during which time his mother was released by paid ransom and his cousin escaped – Kevin somehow kept his wits and was ready when opportunity presented itself. He tricked his captors by saying he was going to bathe in a nearby stream, then took off, only to wander barefooted through the jungle for 2 days before being found by helpful villagers. 

Impressed? See Kevin’s story here:
http://www.firstpost.com/topic/place/philippines-kidnapped-american-teen-hero-escapes-al-qaida-captors-in-phi-video-3A78bZ65UMI-782-1.html
 
 
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10. Toastworthy Teens: Matt Kelly


 Matt Kelly, Toys for C.H.O.P.


Matt Kelly spent much of his childhood as a CHOP (Children’s Hopsital Of Philadephia) patient due to  rare blood disorder and, since he remembers the joy of receiving a toy as a child patient, as he got older he knew he wanted to do the same for other kids. 

So Matt, who says, “I’ve been on the receiving end and now it’s great to give back,” organized not only his friends, family, and classmates, but also complete strangers to collect 300 toys and several hundred dollars for the hospital.  His post requesting new and unwrapped gifts on Facebook and Patch reached even out-of-state donors, and Matt hopes to continue enriching the lives of CHOP patients in the coming year.

I’m sure he will ;)

See his story here:


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11. A drinking bout in several parts (Part 5: Toast)

(GRAND FINALE BEFORE THE NEXT LIBATION)

By Anatoly Liberman


Toasting, a noble art, deserves the attention of all those (etymologists included) who drink for joy, rather than for getting drunk.  The origin of the verb to toast “parch,” which has been with us since the end of the 14th century, poses no problems.  Old French had toster “roast, grill,” and Italian tostare seems to be an unaltered continuation of the Romance protoform.  Tost- is the root of the past participle of Latin torrere (the second conjugation) “parch.”  English has the same root in torrid and less obviously in torrent, from torrens “scorching, said of streams; roaring, rushing”).  A cognate of the root tor- can be seen in Engl. thirst, a most appropriate word in the present context.   Kemp Malone (1889-1971), an eminent American scholar, equally proficient in modern linguistics and medieval literature, once reclassified the senses of the verb toast “parch,” as given in the Oxford English Dictionary, and came to the following conclusion:

“…throughout, the verb means the same thing: ‘to heat thoroughly’.  This has always been the basic meaning of the word, but in modern times the process of toasting has come to be restricted to a beneficial application of heat.  The source of this heat in early times was either the sun or an open fire, but later uses of the word indicate that toasting may be effected by any source of heat found suitable for the purpose, as an electric current or blasts of hot air.”

This is probably true, but it tells us nothing about toasting occurring at banquets, and yet, from an etymological point of view, it must be the same word.

As usual, popular books and the Internet give lots of anecdotal information about the origin of toast “drinking a guest’s health,” without disclosing their sources, but etymologies unsupported by exact references should never be trusted, for authors tend to copy from one another and thus produce an illusion of consensus and solid knowledge, where a critic easily discerns a Ponzi scheme in historical linguistics.  One thing seems to be certain, however: from early on, people put a piece of charred bread at the bottom of a wine glass. Whether this ingredient added flavor, removed flavor, or disguised the presence of poison in the container is less clear.  I will quote part of a statement by a professor of chemistry, as given in the periodical Comments on Etymology (January 19, 1990):

“My understanding of the origin of toast is that the French had a custom of floating spiced bits of toast on various drinks (including coffee and tea) on festive occasions.  It is certainly possible that some spoiled wines were served this way, so that the spoilage could be hidden by the spices, and also so that the toast could absorb some of the odors….  While charcoal and probably toast can remove ethyl acetate, this is a short-term solution because they are not very effective at removing acetic acid.  The primary use of charcoal in the wine industry is the removal of unwanted color and some off-odors.”

It is thus safer to forget for the time being the antiquity and the Middle Ages and start with the 18th century.  The main revision of Samuel Johnson’s famous 1755 dictionary was made by H. J. Todd, who expanded Johnson’s etymologies and added a good deal of new material to the great work.  He pointed to the now well-known passage from Tatler (June 4, 1709).  It has been repr

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12. A bit sad. But it ends with Toast.

posted by Neil
I went to Boston and spent Thanksgiving with Amanda and her family. It was wonderful. I spent any spare moments reading comics for a book I am guest editing next year. (This is a photo of us on the pavement outside her house.)

Now I'm home. Typing a blog entry, listening to TV Smith's Live CD.

...

The saddest moment of the trip was lunchtime today, and a call from Roz Kaveney to let me know that our friend Rob Holdstock had died, of an e.coli infection. He was only 61. When I stumbled into the world of SF and Fantasy, over 25 years ago, as a young journalist, Rob, already a successful and award-winning author, was absolutely friendly, welcoming and encouraging. A big, affable man, with a knack for putting people at their ease, he was always one of the Good Things about the British SF world. His book Mythago Wood was one of my favourite novels of the 1980s. I saw him less and less since I've lived in the US; like too many UK friends, I'd see him mostly at publishing parties and book launches. He died too early. My condolences to Sarah, his partner.

...

Two NPR pieces I should point people to. One is my guest-spot on "Morning Edition", talking about, and interviewing people about, Audio Books, at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120769925.

The other is "On The Media" , at http://www.onthemedia.org/episodes/2009/11/27. I'm one of several people talking about the future of the book (or The Future of The Book).

Big congratulations to Henry Selick, to all at Laika and to Focus for the Coraline Film, which won the Children's Feature Film award at the BAFTAs last night (http://www.bafta.org/awards/childrens).

...
Tickets to the 14th Dec Decatur GA Little Shop of Stories event - reading, Q&A and signing - are available from tomorrow: details at http://littleshopofstories.blogspot.com/2009/11/details-of-neil-gaiman-event.html (basically, from Monday Nov 30th, you can pick up the tickets in Person; from Monday Dec 7th, you can reserve tickets over the phone.)


...

The Green Goddess restaurant in New Orleans gets reviewed in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Note that they do not tell you that if you oh-so-casually ask for the Meze of Destruction, they will make a fuss of you and bring you Something Nice, for this is something you would only learn here.

...
And finally, over at http://twitpic.com/rhg4t, @heydeletethat does portraits of me and Amanda. On Toast. I mean, that's art on Toast.



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13. toast to toast





One slice or two?

I love you, toast, I do.

Forgive my dalliance with chewy English muffins and poppy seed bagels. My fascination with showy waffles. My unabashed drooling over muffins and pancakes and other batter beauties. When all is said and done, when a person is weary of gimmick and falderal, there is only you, my toast -- simple, basic, and totally unassuming.

    

Why did I ever think anything could replace this bastion of breakfast? There are some (gasp!) who find toast boring and unresponsive. I dare say they have lost touch with their inner crumb.

When I was little, my older brother and I sometimes ventured to Grandma Kim's house for breakfast. Both our parents worked, so we were left to our own devices much of the time. We'd arrive on her doorstep unannounced, and didn't have to say a word. One look at us and she knew exactly what we wanted.

First, half a slice of sweet, cold, homegrown papaya. Next, two almost hard boiled eggs, not too runny in the middle. And then, the best part --a perfectly toasted slice of white bread, generously buttered all the way to the edges, with a coating of fresh guava jelly. Her signature presentation? The toast folded precisely in half, perfect for small hands and eager mouths. Biting into that combination of warm, chewy bread, butter and jelly, told us we were safe, loved, and always welcome.


Toast is the stuff dreams are made of.

Now, I'm not the only one who worships at the shrine of toast. Do you know Mercy Watson? Yes, she's a pig, but no ordinary porker. She's the porcine wonder who stars in her own series of early readers. I absolutely. Love. This. Series. I mean, we're talking Kate DiCamillo here. With illos by Chris Van Dusen.

Mercy lives with Mr. and Mrs. Watson, who are all retro-50's smiley and kind. They love and indulge her, and everything she does delights them. Her weakness? Hot buttered toast. Stacks and stacks of it. Her pursuit of and acute awareness of HBT makes for some rollicking good stories. So far, in Books 1-4, she's "rescued" the Watsons from a falling bed, hijacked a pink cadillac, foiled an intruder, and dressed up as a princess for Halloween.

      
       published by Candlewick (2008)
        for ages 4-8, 80 pp.

The latest installment, Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig, finds her in trouble for eating the neighbors' newly planted pansies. She manages to escape Animal Control, and as in the other books, there is a big feast of HBT at the end for all concerned. Chris Van Dusen's cartoony illustrations jack up the humor several notches with manic energy and hilarious facial expressions. If you can read one of these books and NOT crave HBT, there is something seriously wrong with you. Really.

I've just finished a slice of white toast with butter and guava jelly, and I miss Grandma Kim. I loved the sound of the toast popping up and the knife scraping the toast as she buttered it. Such is the power of simple food, lovingly prepared.

How do you like your toast?

           

More Toast Love:

Visit the Cyber Toaster Museum.

What about a toast-it note instead of a post-it?

Make some Bite Me/I'm Hot Toast!

Australian art on toast.

Uber cool musical toast.

And then there's always this:


Butter me up!

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14. public service announcements

Dave McKean, for too many years now a man without a website, wants me to tell you that things are finally stirring at the unusually-named http://davemckean.com/ (and that Allen Spiegel will be selling original art from The Graveyard Book at Comic-Con.)

Ah, the city with the most observant Jews (New York) gets you on Rosh Hashana. Alas.

Maybe next time. These events you just listed, including the Sep 30 event, aren't the official Graveyard Book Tour, right? Ordinarily I'd assume the Book Tour wouldn't be until the book has come out, but I know that this tour will be more of a reading/Q&A tour rather than a signing tour, and if it's not a signing, then the tour can start before the book is available.

It would be awesome if all publicity/scheduling people had a big calendar with every religion's holidays, along with demographic maps showing which places have a lot of which religion.


A few years ago Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket's ammanuensis) and I were grumbling together about the way that, probably thousands of years ago, it was decided that all of the major Jewish Holidays would fall in High Publishing Season, and how unfair this was to Jewish authors and their readers and, nu, what were you going to do about it?

To answer your question, No, the events I listed will be the US Graveyard Book Tour events. The US publication date is September the 30th. (The UK pub date is Hallowe'en, and I'll be signing and/or reading in Dublin and Scotland and elsewhere in the UK and London.)

But there is an event to make up for my being in New York on Rosh Hashana: On November the 9th, which is a Sunday, I'll be In Conversation With the amazing Chipp Kidd, at the 92nd St Y, talking about 20 years of Sandman. And I'll be signing stuff afterwards, if the last events I did at the Y are anything to go by.

...

I ran into this quote in the New Yorker, about reviewer Katherine White. The first paragraph is from the article, the second is a quote from White:

Then, as now, some of the best prose and poetry, not to mention the best
art, was to be found in books written for children—disciplined, inspired,
elevated, even, by the constraints of the form. Katharine White loved many books
for children; above all, she admired the beauty and lyricism of picture books
and readers for the under-twelve set. But she had her doubts about books aimed
at older kids:

It has always seemed to us that boys and girls who are worth their salt
begin at twelve or thirteen to read, with a brilliant indiscrimination, every
book they can lay their hands on. In the welter, they manage to read some good
ones. A girl of twelve may take up Jane Austen, a boy Dickens; and you wonder
how writers of juveniles have the brass to compete in this field, blithely
announcing their works as “suitable for the child of twelve to fourteen.” Their
implication is that everything else is distinctly unsuitable. Well, who knows?
Suitability isn’t so simple.



The full article -- the birth of Stuart Little compared and contrasted with the rise and fall of the first influential children's librarian -- is wonderful. It starts at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=1

I was interviewed in Locus this month (the one with Garth Nix on the cover), and tried to say something very much the same about Young Adult fiction: that young adults (and older kids) should be reading everything, relentlessly. They should be reading outside their comfort zones, because the training wheels have come off, and that's the only way they'll find out where their comfort zones are, reading everything.

(Also learned from that Locus that Michael De Larrabeiti was dead. I interviewed him once, as a journalist, and loved his three Borrible books -- they were (especially the first two) hugely influential on Neverwhere.)

...

There's an article about the revised and retooled theatre production of Mister Punch in LA today at http://www.latimes.com/theguide/performing-arts/la-gd-perf17-2008jul17,0,4577290.story -- with a marvellous photo, which looks strangely McKeanish (see below). It's an interview done with me last week when I'd just got back from Brazil and was slightly under the weather, but the reporter has made it sound like I was still making sense.




WHERE: Bootleg Theater, 2220 Beverly Blvd., L.A.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Fri., 4 and 8 p.m. Sat., 4 p.m. Sun.; ends Aug. 31. (no perf Aug 8-10).

PRICE: $25 ($50 opening night gala)

INFO: (800) 838-3006; www.rogueartists.org


...

And, because all questions posed on this blog are eventually answered:

ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha did a run of 50 black on black Disaster Area t-shirts in the late 1980s. There were also yellow on black and white on black versions but the last was sold around 2001, and they have not done a reprint since then.

Someone asked what sizes the various tee shirts are. They range from xxl down to the ones where I'm not sure how I used to get them on and am certain either the shirts have shrunk or I used to be a lot smaller. So from Too Huge For Me To Wear down to Really Bloody Small.

...

My friend Kelli Bickman has a mother named Connie. Last time I saw Connie she came over and gathered up all the accumulated bags I'd got from planes over the years, the ones with the mini toothbrush and the eye-shade in, that had built up into a small mound at the back of a cupboard, and she took them away to do something good and worthwhile with them for kids. Kelli wrote the other day to say,

My Mom is the volunteer creative director for Children's Culture Connection (CCC), a non-profit organization working with 12 international charities to help children in America, Haiti, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala, India, Peru, Kenya, Nigeria, China, Bulgaria and Russia. CCC has raised thousands of dollars to help empower and connect the children of the world, built houses in Vietnam, installed water pipelines in Sri Lanka to bring clean water to orphanages, sent kids to school, helped with medical supplies in the Amazon jungles, organized art projects with children in seven countries. and more...it is really amazing.

Feeling very inspired by the lessons learned from my mother and her spirit of giving, I am working to help Children's Culture Connection raise awareness, as well as send art supplies to the children of the world. I've just re-developed my website (www.kellibickman.net) and will donate 20% of the sale of any works of art to buy art supplies for these children and help them to expand their imaginations and their world.

Can you put this link on your blog? It would be greatly appreciated...I am eager to spread the good news. Of course, if anyone is interested in getting involved or donating directly to the CCC, that is most welcome. www.childrenscultureconnection.org

...

And everything in this whole post pales into insignificance when placed beside...

Mr Toast as Sandman
.

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15. Poetry Friday -- Riveted

RIVETED
by Robyn Sarah from A Day's Grace: Poems 1997-2002.

It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
*
*
*
...But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious dénouement
to the unsurprising end — riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,
and because they are ours.


Read the whole poem here.


It's been awhile since one of Garrison Keillor's poems on The Writer's Almanac spoke directly to my heart. It happened yesterday. I read those first two lines and they said so much:

  • Age happens.
  • Bodies fall apart.
  • Public education.
  • Global warming.
The middle of the poem made me slump down in my chair. But then the ending. The truth of the ending. The glory that makes us cling to life even when our bodies betray us. Even when current events seem to be going somewhere in a hand basket.

I'm listening to The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman right now. Lyra and Will are in the Land of the Dead. I dedicate this poem to them, to the force of life, to all of the amazing things we each will do with our lives.



Kelly Fineman has the roundup today.

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