When Bob and I lived in the redwood forests of CA, we planted a bamboo forest under the redwoods and used the four varieties of bamboo in the creation of Bob’s sculpture as well as our lamps. I even used the small twigs from the black bamboo to make earrings and brooches. I’m delighted that these enterprising entrepreneurs in Ghana have found such novel uses for it and are giving jobs to 40 locals as well. Click on the URL below to see the video.
https://www.greatbigstory.com/stories/dangote-afrocentric-bamboo
I want to share with you this message by Leo Buscaglia that was shared by Dolly on koolkosherkitchen. I think it is something the entire nation needs to hear. She also shares a recipe for a crockpot turkey. I’m not cooking this Thanksgiving, but if I were, I’d give it a try. See her recipe by clicking HERE.
I must reblog Thom Hickey’s touching tribute to WWI soldiers. In particular, I was touched by this rendition of “Waltzing Matilda.” It is not at all what I expected.
In 1914 they came from the hamlets and the villages and the towns and the cities.
They came from the hills and the mountains and the valleys.
Farmers and miners.
Teachers and doctors.
White, Brown and Black.
They marched away from Home with smiles on their faces.
They knew they would be Home again soon.
Today it is exactly 100 years since the guns fell silent ending World War One.
The emotional, spiritual, pyschic and cultural cost of such a war is beyond all human calculation.
A cataclysm shattering hearts and minds.
Shattering philosophies and faiths.
Shattering nations and societies.
Shattering hopes and dreams.
Shattering comfortable certainties..
The toll in terms of deaths and casualties we can, in awe, to some extent number.
From Australia : Lieutenant Joseph Balfe from Brunswick aged 25 and more than 62, 000 of his comrades.
From Canada : Private Percy Bark aged 18 and…
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Another wonderful sharing of a complex and quirky mind. If you are an artist or if you aren’t–this is a must-see.
This is a story of an amazing sixteen year old girl in Mexico and the school for the gifted that she promotes.
https://www.greatbigstory.com/stories/mexico-s-school-for-the-gifted
jdbphoto, painting by Jesus Lopez Vega
The Prophet
All the solitary seas that he chose to sail
only took him farther, out beyond the pale.
All truths he discovered, he shared to no avail.
When he tried to hit the mark, why did he always fail?
Call him an outsider. Throw him into jail.
Form the boards into a cross. Hammer in each nail.
Set him adrift to flounder with no scoop or pail.
Let him use his own hands if he needs to bail.
Put him on the pillory. Bring out whip and flail.
Bind him up and gag him lest he tells his tale.
Instead of seeing different truths, it’s best you wear a veil.
No telling if you listened, your own truths might just pale.
Fresh new winds are often perceived as a gale.
Manna sent from heaven to others is just hail.
When you confront that other—messiah or white whale,
get your harpoons ready. You must insure they fail.
Truth-tellers speak so softly that when the bigots rail
it may be that you only hear their shout and wail,
but if you set out to find them over that next dale,
the whole world falls silent when you find their trail.
In the night wind’s keening or rattle of the quail
or in the ridges of the road, written there in Braille,
you may find the answer the outcast tried to tell.
Grasp those truths you find yourself and live by them as well.
The Daily Addiction prompt today is solitary. Here is the link:
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/daily-addictions-2018-week-40/solitary
I saw this wonderful tirade by Audra Alexander on a friend’s Facebook page. I tracked down the author, who generously gave me permission to run it on my blog. Since there was no button on her blog to do so, I couldn’t “reblog” it, so here it is in its entirety. I hope you visit her blog, URL given below, to tell her what you think !!!! I think she’s captured perfectly and in an entertaining if irate fashion what is going to happen when Kavanaugh is confirmed:
Lava
Kavanaugh is going to get confirmed, we all know that. A lot of women will be very angry. Some might even take to the streets. But this won’t be the tipping point. There won’t be a tipping point, there never is. There will just be the subterranean lava flow of women’s anger – slow, blistering, savage and inexorable. We’ll go to bed angry, we’ll get up angry, we’ll drink our coffee and fix the kids’ breakfasts angrily, we’ll drive thru car line and to work angry, our male colleagues will ask each other if we’re on the rag, we’ll eat silent lunches with rage and we’ll pick up groceries on the way home with vengeance on our hearts. We’ll kiss our partners and our kids goodnight wrathfully. We’ll cry hot, silently screaming tears in the middle of brushing our teeth. We’ll go to bed angry. We’ll get up angry…
Nothing will seem to change for you. But the mother of a 32 year old man will suddenly snap at him to “Grow up!” when he complains that he’s pretty sick of frozen dinners lately. That quiet chick 3 cubicles down will show up out of nowhere and tell a gathering of dudebros that she’ll report them to HR if they don’t shut up. They’ll call her a bitch under their breath as she turns around, but she won’t care. The teenage daughter will ask her dad if he’d still find it funny if she was the punchline in his favorite joke. He’ll scold her for talking back and look at his wife, who will look back and say nothing. Another daughter will say nothing to her father – ever again.
The anger will shift, seismic but unseen. Before the lava used to burn us to ash on the inside. It’s bubbling over now. Enough of us have ripped open our bodies to let the boiling soil of our lives out that the heat itself causes fires. Sure, you can put one or two out at a time. A single flame is easy to catch. But the lava is elemental and everywhere. Kavanaugh will be confirmed. And in less than a generation he’ll be a petrified ash fossil, frozen in a rictus of agony in the new Pompeii. Nothing will seem to have changed, until it’s too late. The lava of our anger is going to cover the earth and bury you.
Here is her blog. Check it out! https://scarletvirago.com/2018/09/28/lava/
and a great interview: https://whdh.com/news/grandfather-granddaughter-dancing-duo-from-reading-a-hit/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 