Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Sharpshot Nature .Com 02338-tod-036512 Sandhill Crane

Sandhill Crane

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2022-10-28 02338-tod-036512 Sandhill Crane

NIKON D7500 – ƒ/7.1 1/500 600mm ISO200 – Crex Meadows Wildlife Refuge, WI

Source: Sharpshot Nature .Com 02338-tod-036512 Sandhill Crane

Alexandra Petri: WaPo Humorist Endorses Kamala, as Her Publisher Refuses to | Diane Ravitch’s blog

Alexandra Petri is the humorist for The Washington Post. In her column, she endorsed Kamala Harris. She called her column “It Has Fallen to Me, the Humor Columnist, to Endorse Kamala Harris for President.” This is why I didn’t cancel my subscription to The Washington Post. I want to see many ways the opinion writers devise to torture Jeff Bezos.

She wrote:

The Washington Post is not bothering to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election. (Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin and the founder and executive chairman of Amazon and Amazon Web Services, also owns The Post.)

We as a newspaper suddenly remembered, less than two weeks before the election, that we had a robust tradition 50 years ago of not telling anyone what to do with their vote for president.

It is time we got back to those “roots,” I’m told!
Roots are important, of course. As recently as the 1970s, The Post did not endorse a candidate for president. As recently as centuries ago, there was no Post and the country had a king! Go even further back, and the entire continent of North America was totally uninhabitable, and we were all spineless creatures who lived in the ocean, and certainly there were no Post subscribers.

But if I were the paper, I would be a little embarrassed that it has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to make our presidential endorsement. I will spare you the suspense: I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them.

Let me tell you something. I am having a baby (It’s a boy!), and he is expected on Jan. 6, 2025 (It’s a … Proud Boy?). This is either slightly funny or not at all funny. This whole election, I have been lurching around, increasingly heavily pregnant, nauseated, unwieldy, full of the commingled hopes and terrors that come every time you are on the verge of introducing a new person to the world.

Well, that world will look very different, depending on the outcome of November’s election, and I care which world my kid gets born into. I also live here myself. And I happen to care about the people who are already here, in this world. Come to think of it, I have a lot of reasons for caring how the election goes. I think it should be obvious that this is not an election for sitting out.

The case for Donald Trump is “I erroneously think the economy used to be better? I know that he has made many ominous-sounding threats about mass deportations, going after his political enemies, shutting down the speech of those who disagree with him (especially media outlets), and that he wants to make things worse for almost every category of person — people with wombs, immigrants, transgender people, journalists, protesters, people of color — but … maybe he’ll forget.”

“But maybe he’ll forget” is not enough to hang a country on!

Embarrassingly enough, I like this country. But everything good about it has been the product of centuries of people who had no reason to hope for better but chose to believe that better things were possible, clawing their way uphill — protesting, marching, voting, and, yes, doing the work of journalism — to build this fragile thing called democracy. But to be fragile is not the same as to be perishable, as G.K. Chesterton wrote. Simply do not break a glass, and it will last a thousand years. Smash it, and it will not last an instant. Democracy is like that: fragile, but only if you shatter it.

Trust is like that, too, as newspapers know.
I’m just a humor columnist. I only know what’s happening because our actual journalists are out there reporting, knowing that their editors have their backs, that there’s no one too powerful to report on, that we would never pull a punch out of fear. That’s what our readers deserve and expect: that we are saying what we really think, reporting what we really see; that if we think Trump should not return to the White House and Harris would make a fine president, we’re going to be able to say so.

That’s why I, the humor columnist, am endorsing Kamala Harris by myself!

Source: Alexandra Petri: WaPo Humorist Endorses Kamala, as Her Publisher Refuses to | Diane Ravitch’s blog

♫ Both Sides Now ♫ (Redux) | Filosofa’s Word

I might have liked Joni Mitchell’s version a lot better had I not heard Judy Collins’ rendition, and for me, there was no other.  Collins is known as a folk singer, and has recorded songs written by Leonard Cohen, Pete Seger, Bob Dylan and many others.  Her recording of this song provided her first hit, and also brought exposure to Mitchell, who went on to a very successful career as both a songwriter and performer.

Both Sides, Now
Joni Mitchell/Judy Collins

Source: ♫ Both Sides Now ♫ (Redux) | Filosofa’s Word

यादों का चमन / Garden of Memories  – Kaushal Kishore

 

लोग आते हैं चले जाते हैं, मुझे कोई शिकवा नहीं,

प्रकृति का यही नियम है, इसमें है कुछ नया नहीं…

लेकिन खुशबू आती रहे, तुम्हारी यादों के चमन से,

यही जुस्तजू है मेरी, खुशी की धुन है यह, वफ़ा नहीं…

🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻

People drift in and out; I embrace the tide,

The life’s gentle rhythm where we all reside…

May the scent of your love linger in the breeze,

From the garden of memories that put me at ease…

This is my only wish, my heart’s tender plea:

Not chains of loyalty, just my happy melody…

.

–Kaushal Kishore  

Source: यादों का चमन / Garden of Memories  – Kaushal Kishore

Goldener Oktober… 🍂🍁🌞 – Leben als Mensch

„Es ist doch erstaunlich, was ein einziger Sonnenstrahl mit der Seele des Menschen machen kann.“ (Fjodor Dostojewski)

Goldener Oktober

In der zurückliegenden Woche wurden wir mit so zahlreichen Stunden goldener Oktober-Sonne beschenkt, dass wir noch immer zutiefst dankbar und ganz voller Freude sind.

Täglich waren wir mit unserem Enkel in Mutter Natur unterwegs. Es gab immer etwas Schönes zu entdecken. Dennoch blieb dem Ferienkind natürlich noch genügend Raum für seine eigenen Hobbys. (z.B. Lesen und Computer-Spiele 😉)

Mich allerdings zieht es noch nicht wirklich mit großem Elan an den Laptop. Es ist, wie es ist und alles kommt zur rechten Zeit… 😊

Ihr Lieben, habt einen guten Start in die neue Woche, die Letzte im Monat Oktober. DANKE, dass ihr/ dass du da bist. In herzlicher Verbundenheit grüßt, Elke

Source: Goldener Oktober… 🍂🍁🌞 – Leben als Mensch

Light is life – Susana Cabaço

Growing slowly and silently, moment by moment, with no rush. Enjoying the sunlight and the raindrops, if present, otherwise keeping the faith they will eventually come. Holding onto nothing but the maternal earth. Still being free, for, regardless of being in the same place, there are no limits for their expansion up. Always toward the light, because deep within they “know” that light is life. Plants trust not only on their roots and the earth beneath them but also on the prevalent presence of the light—even when the cloudy skies make it seem different sometimes. Light eventually shines through, and with it the natural flow and growth of life. Clouds and storms are ephemeral, shortly passing by. Beyond them, light remains, always! And even when the plant is no longer there to receive it, its seeds will eventually sprout and emerge from the soil toward the sky, looking for the imperishable light. The essence of the plant keeps reliving in the new seedlings that keep growing upward, as the light keeps calling them toward the celestial bliss that assures life. And it is so, forever.
How different in essence is that from our human lives? Isn’t growing up and toward the light the ultimate reason for our earthly existence?


Copyright © 2024 Susana Cabaço. All Rights Reserved.

Source: Light is life – Susana Cabaço