New House

Moving in slowly over the next few weeks. I looked for a long time for this lovely place.

For Auld Lang Syne

For Katymine, for Kobe, for all our beloved ones.



A very Scottish, longing version of Auld Lang Syne, which means Old Long Since, a remembrance of those who hae gone before us.

We'll tak a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

crossposted at firedoglake 1 jan 2010

Science Jokes

Brian Malow on Fora.tv



*****

Kraken

Rainy Day: Pull Up a Chair

crossposted at firedoglake 17 oct 2009



"Into every life, a little rain must fall"

Good morning pups, I hope you are in a nice dry place waiting for these heavy rains to pass! Wasn't it just summer? The dour Scottish part of me rather likes these days, an opportunity to be indoors, if we're fortunate enough to have indoor work, and to contemplate life.

It's a chance to think about how things grow and change, how we can go through the storms and come out on the other side.

A lot of people are under heavy weather economically this year, and it looks like unemployment - a lagging factor in any economic recovery - seems destined to rise a little more before we get real relief.

If ever there was a need for community, this is it. Many folks here are struggling, and we all know friends and neighbors who are shocked to realize the safety net didn't include them. We need to share ideas.

I would like your thoughts and suggestions about how to reach out to our family members, neighbors, friends, and strangers in need during this economic storm.

We need to rethink our participation in the local food bank and other agencies that are there for us all when we need it.

This would be a good time to gather up warm clothing and especially coats that we are not using, and donate them to a local organization that will get them to people who will be cold without them.

There may be elderly in your neighborhood who need extra help as the friends they have counted on slip away from age or infirmity.

Pups, let's be there for each other. Folks who have never commented before - a special invitation to you, we would love to hear from you in the comments.

I've got fresh-baked blueberry muffins along with some hot tea and coffee and cocoa with extra little marshmallows, so let's gather together and think what we can do. Pull up a chair....

*****

photo by .faramarz

Hope for the Future

When you look carefully at the darkness you begin to see the most astonishing things.

*****

photo by Joe_M500

Hey We Know How to Have Fun

I love this.

We're #37! - Paul Hipp

Yay team!!

A Beautiful Mind

Latest pictures from the Hubble Telescope.

From New York Times

Not Attending Netroots Nation

Hope y'all have a good time anyway. Need to be a mom for a while.

photo by Ivan Makarov

Frank McCourt, Author, 1930 - 2009

photo by David Shankbone

The world has lost a great voice: Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, 'Tis, and Teacher Man, died Sunday, 19 July 2009.

FDL writer Cynthia Kouril, who met Himself, talks of McCourt and what he meant to Irish-Americans.

I am so sad. I remember when he would hold forth at the White Horse Tavern in the Village. He had such an agile mind and strung words together like fine jewels. He was an artist and words were his palette.

I remember one Sunday, going there for brunch with Margaret Breen, and it was our great good fortune to be there when “himself” was telling stories. I don’t think that either of us girls said a word, just ate our brown bread, eggs and tea and listened in awe.

The New York Times has a touching story of his childhood in the obit:

he described a childhood of terrible deprivation. After Mr. McCourt’s alcoholic father abandoned the family, his mother — the Angela of the title — begged on the streets of Limerick to keep him and his three brothers meagerly fed, poorly clothed and housed in a basement flat with no bathroom and a thriving population of vermin. The book’s clear-eyed look at childhood misery, its incongruously lilting, buoyant prose and its heartfelt urgency struck a remarkable chord with readers and critics.

“When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all,” the book’s second paragraph begins in a famous passage. “It was, of course, a miserable childhood: The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

“People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and all the terrible things they did to us for 800 long years.”

Difficult to let this magnificent writer leave us. I can do no better than to quote Kouril's fare thee well:

Slán leat. Mr. McCourt. Slán abhaile.

Walter Cronkite - R.I.P.

Cronkite announces JFK's death: