Category Archives: Uncategorized

“Who Am I Under Here?” Mask Contest. Cash Prizes!!!

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Be sure to come back here again after you click on this link and then the link that pops up below it to see the video that goes with the below photo:  https://defectivehumor.net/?p=877


” Who Am I Under Here?” Mask Contest. Cash Prizes!!!

I had to go out the other day to take photos but my iPhone suddenly would not respond to my demands. It took me awhile to realize that it was activated by facial recognition and I had my mask on!! Ha!

I wonder how many others have had this same thing happen and it set me to thinking that I’d like to sponsor a mask competition for decorating an actual mask worn to fend off the coronavirus in two categories.

1.  In one, for a mask that is painted to actually look like the parts of your own face covered by the mask so you look as much like yourself as possible in the mask as without. This needs to be done on an actual mask you’ve been using for health reasons. In this category, the winner will be determined according to skill of execution, appeal, likeness to your own face or perhaps humor if you are using a gimmick. A $50 prize will be awarded in this category.

2.  The second contest is for the most imaginatively painted or decorated mask. Again, it needs to be an actual mask that you have been wearing. The medical mask, particle mask,  homemade cloth mask or whatever you’ve been wearing needs to be the base but you may embellish it however you wish,  paint on it or both. In this category it need not be painted to be an extension of your own face. In other words it should not be painted to look like you but it must be wearable. The winner will be determined according to originality, skill of execution and appeal and perhaps humor  if this is your intent, but need not be humorous to win. A $50 prize will be awarded in this category
 
 

If you do not have a blog or website, please post a photo on my facebook page, not as a personal message . If you do have a blog or website,  post in your site with a link to this blog at: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2020/04/09/who-am-i-under-here-mask-contest-cash-prizes/ If it is linked to another posting on my blog and it isn’t linked to this particular blog, I may not see it. Just put a comment with the URL of your blog where your photo is posted.

Two $50 first prizes will be awarded, with the understanding that you give permission for me to publish a photo of your mask in my blog. ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY APRIL 24.

Set in Concrete

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Below is a collage of concrete poetry I’ve done over the past six years. Please click on images to increase the size and read the poems.

 

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a concrete poem. Here are a few.

Patchwork

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Mask quilt by Deanna Taylor
Detail from mask quilt
African motif quilt by Deanna Taylor

Please click on photos to enlarge.

Patchwork

I’ve put my life together
like a patchwork quilt,
and almost finished.
It is beautiful—
the lawn freshly groomed,
drawers organized,
all of the pictures straightened on the walls.
Friends, travel, career, family, art, writing–
a happy life that 
I have stitched together,
hiding the pain under the seams.

The NaPoWriMo prompt today is  to peruse the work of  a twitter bot, and use a line or two, or a phrase or even a word that stands out to you, as the seed for your own poem.  “Under the seams runs the pain.” is the line from a Mary Ruefle tweet that I selected as my seed. When I Googled it, it said that it was a quote by  Anne Carson in Autobiography of Red,

For some reason, my Photos system has gone crazy on my computer and I can’t preview or edit them or get them down to size, so I’m publishing this and will try to add photos later. Thanks to Forgottenman, we now have photos.  I hope.

Frank Bruni’s Opinion Column in the NYT

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View in browser|nytimes.com

Continue reading the main story
https://www.nytimes.com/FrankBruni
April 8, 2020

If you missed the previous newsletter, you can read it here.
Al Drago for The New York Times
Author Headshot
Opinion Columnist

I didn’t expect Donald Trump to turn eloquent overnight, nor is that necessary. Strong leadership doesn’t require it.

I didn’t expect him to stop complimenting himself. Bragging is as central to his existence as swimming is to a whale’s. It’s what propels him. It’s what sustains him. At this point it’s not merely reflexive. It’s autonomic.

I didn’t expect him to start telling the truth. I’m an optimist, not a fantasist.

But what I did expect, or at least hope for, was that this once-in-a-generation pandemic would tamp down his pettiness and meanness. How could it not? How cold he behold the scale of the suffering and the dimensions of the challenge before him and not realize that he finally had to be bigger and dig deeper?

There is no such bigness in Trump, no such digging. There is just the usual martyr complex, the familiar tirades and the same old passing of the buck. I’m forced to conclude that he’s not just a man ill equipped for this moment. He’s a man whose soul went missing.

I said as much in a column published a few days ago, and I winced when I wrote it and cringed when I sent it to my editor, because I don’t want to feel this cynical about an American president, certainly not now. I want to be pleasantly surprised. I want to be forced to reassess all prior misgivings and to apologize for selling him short, because that would mean that he was ably and nobly guiding us through this nightmare. Get something this important right and you’re forgiven all wrongs.

But as I explained in the column, which assesses Trump’s behavior over the past month, he isn’t finding the grace in crisis that other presidents did. He doesn’t even seem to be trying. I can’t fathom that. And I definitely can’t swallow it.

Laments like mine won’t change him. His rot is too fundamental for that. But they do, I think, serve a purpose: They nudge us past any lingering illusions that the direst of circumstances will transform the false prophet into a benevolent god.

No, this prophet just demands an even greater magnitude of worship. And he grows all the more furious when he doesn’t get it.
Continue reading the main story

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Wake up Before it is Too Late!!!

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Federal Government knew about the Corona Virus breakout and what effect it would have on the U.S. as early as November. Read about it here. People, we need a head of government who knows what he is doing and who is not just a media star!  Open your eyes. Your life and the existence of the world is at stake in this and other matters. Research says that pollution helped to spread the virus. Listen to the scientists, not a reality “star.”

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources-080111894–abc-news-topstories.html

Metallica

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For NaPoWriMo Day 7, the prompt is to choose a news headline as the topic for a poem. Here is the news report I chose to write about: “Researchers Discover Faraway Planet Where the Rain is Made of Iron.” I guess you might call this an ironic poem?

Metallica

Use your cook pots for umbrellas, ‘cuz it’s raining iron rain.
I don’t mind heavy metal, but as weather? It’s insane.
The drumming is excessive, and if you can’t take the pain,
you don’t want to be caught out singing in the rain.

If you plan on going wading, I’d have another think,
for the puddles that you’re ogling seem to be full of zinc.
When it snows, most of the snowflakes have crystals made of lead—
not a pleasing prospect when they’re falling on your head.

Oceans full of copper, bronze and steel and tin
may be the place you have to die for to be in.
Silver hills and valleys, rivers made of gold
are all that’s left now that our nature’s all been sold.

Does tungsten please your taste buds? Can you eat the golden calf?
With no leather, those bronze slippers aren’t as comfortable by half.
Aluminum for cooking, some folks think can’t be beat,
but what you use for cooking you cannot also eat!

Now they’ve fracked away our water and melted polar ice,
Mother Nature thinks a world of metal would be nice.
So put away your appetites, for food will be passé
once the plants and animals have all been put away.

Say thank you to our rulers. Say thank you very much
for their self-serving decisions and their Midas touch.
Some of us saw this coming but the others did not see
They were too busy getting their news from Fox TV!!!

Oh dear. I said I wasn’t going to write another political poem. Well, the prompts made me do it. Once again.

Forward and Back Poem

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You need to read this poem from top to bottom and then bottom to top to get the message. Sent to me by my friend Patricia Dawn and published with her permission. Love it.

Refugees
by Brian Bilston

They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With Bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Building a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way

 (now read from bottom to top)        

Earth Slaps Back

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“As more is learned about the recurrence of Covid-19, the study also could have far-reaching implications for clean-air regulations, which the Trump administration has worked to roll back over the past three years on the grounds that they have been onerous to industry.

“The study results underscore the importance of continuing to enforce existing air pollution regulations to protect human health both during and after the Covid-19 crisis,” the study said.

Last week, the Trump administration announced a plan to weaken Obama-era regulations on automobile tailpipe emissions, asserting the rollback would save lives because Americans would buy newer, safer vehicles. But the administration’s own analysis also found that there would be even more premature deaths from increased air pollution.”  (Click on the link above to read more. . . .)

Indian Shot Lily: FOTD Apr 6, 2020

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For Cee’s FOTD

Captain, Oh Captain

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Image by Kyle Ryan on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Captain, Oh Captain

We need a precise president, not one who estimates,
prescribing iffy medicine while there are still debates
concerning its effectiveness. It’s time to mutiny
and elect someone smart who has ability to see
that fabrication will not do when truth is all that works
to save a world that up ’til now is reeling from the quirks
of one who simply opens lips to see what will fall out.
Our head of state is lacking brains—of that there is no doubt!

An engine cannot run when it doesn’t have the fuel,
and since our ship of state is being fueled by a fool
who does not know the difference between reality
out here in the real world and reality TV,
we have to be the ones who care enough for our survival
to oust this man who runs our country like a sham revival.
We need to put the bounce back in a country that is failing,
and elect a brand new captain for the ship that he’s been sailing.

 

Word prompts for today are precise, engine, bounce, mutiny and care.

Please check out the news report below regarding Donald Trump prescribing medicine for Coronavirus that has not been scientifically or medically approved:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-trump-pitches-drug-042807813.html