Quotes of the week

"There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all." ~Ogden Nash

One today is worth two tomorrows. ~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac

Boy, when you are dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a god dam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you are dead? Nobody.~J. D. Salinger

Meditation of the week

It was on this day in 1920 that the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote. Seventy-two years earlier, at the Seneca Falls Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott had called for the rights of women, and begun the cause of women's suffrage.

Charlotte Woodward was the only one of the women who signed the Declaration who was still alive to see this day in 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified. She was 91 years old. But she herself never got to vote—she was sick on election day in 1920, and by the next spring confined to her house, and probably died soon after.

Poem of the Week

Straightpins

by Jo McDougall

Growing up in a small town,
we didn't notice
the background figures of our lives,
gray men, gnarled women,
dropping from us silently
like straightpins to a dressmaker's floor.
The old did not die
but simply vanished
like discs of snow on our tongues.
We knew nothing then of nothingness
or pain or loss—
our days filled with open fields,
football,
turtles and cows.

One day we noticed
Death has a musty breath,
that some we loved
died dreadfully,
that dying
sometimes takes time.
Now, standing in a supermarket line
or easing out of a parking lot,
we realize
we've become the hazy backgrounds
of younger lives.
How long has it been,
we ask no one in particular,
since we've seen a turtle
or a cow?

Author of the week

It's the birthday of a great writer who passed away just last month, Frank McCourt, (books by this author) born on this day in Brooklyn (1930). His parents were Irish immigrants, and when Frank was four years old, the family moved back to Ireland. McCourt had a difficult childhood, living in extreme poverty with an alcoholic father who was often absent. Three of his six brothers and sisters died from malnutrition and disease. He wrote: "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 father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying school masters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all — we were wet."

When Frank McCourt was 19, he managed to make it back to America, where he worked at a hotel and at a hat factory. Then he was drafted into the Army and fought in Germany. Afterward, the Army let him go to college on the GI bill, even though he didn't have a high school education. And from there, he became a teacher. He taught English in the New York public schools for 30 years, and he frequently told his students stories about his childhood.

And then, after he retired, he started to write his story. But he struggled with the voice. He had written about 20 pages, and one night he made a note for himself about something he wanted to write about the next day, and he jotted it down in a simple present tense. And it felt right, so the next day he started writing in the voice of a child, and that became his memoir of his childhood in Ireland, Angela's Ashes (1996). It won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and it stayed on the New York Times best seller list for two years. He followed it up with two more memoirs, 'Tis (1999) and Teacher Man (2005).

He said, "After a full belly all is poetry."

Best of Craig’s List of the week

I want some orange juice

Video of the week

I was at Summerfest this weekend in York SC and it was getting hot so we were leaving. As we headed for the car, I heard this blues band playing and there was a short guy, just tearing up the lead guitar. I got closer and was transfixed by this phenomenal guitar player, Jake Haldenwang. They played Statesboro blues and I would have sworn it was Duane Allman playing lead. Only it wasn’t quite Duane’s style, or anybody else’s style, It was Jakes style. Pam found out his name and that he is only 13 years old!

He played another song, this time using a slide, and he struggled with the slide, you could see he was frustrated, so he threw off the slide and just went off on the lead part, really put his heart into it. Wow. Here is his Youtube page

http://www.youtube.com/JakesHwy61BB

Websites of the week

http://www.lifetuner.org/ LifeTuner is a new expert-backed Web site sponsored by AARP that aims to provide a simple roadmap to help young Americans achieve financial security.

IWANTONERIGHTNOW

Mexico Eases Ban on Drug Possession Those found in possession of the equivalent of four joints of marijuana, or four lines of cocaine will no longer be viewed as criminals. Instead they will be encouraged to seek government-funded drug treatment, which will be compulsory if users are caught a third time. The new law applies to a wide range of drugs, including heroin and methamphetamine.

Understanding and raising girls

Burger King Is Above The Law