"Summertime" by Chris Trapper

John Wilkes Booth

Yann Arthus-Bertrand captures fragile Earth in wide-angle [TED]

2009 Camillus Memorial Day Parade

Looking For Your Face -- Rumi

Oprah at Duke University Commencement 2009

Sean Kirst: Looking Back at Joe Biden's Neighborhood

Sean Kirst: Looking Back at Joe Biden's Neighborhood

Related: Vice president Joe Biden visits the Syracuse streets he once called home

Colorful Wares - Who Will Buy? [photos]

all photos by Jude Nagurney Camwell ©

Going Places [photo]

I couldn't help but notice [and capture] an ironic juxtaposition between the sign at the gas pump at which I was standing in the workaday world and the mention of the faith-filled gift implied within the very name of the modest "Gift of Love Ministry" directly across the street.

One sign involves a place where your contribution is welcomed in exchange for the promise of reaching a heavenly destination.

The other sign offers the same. ;)

photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell

Parked [photo]

parked

asleep on a city bench
people strolled the early Spring day
oblivious to his homelessness
sign said no parking

but he was parked
sure as the nose on your face
no sign stopped him
no one took notice

parked


photo and words by Jude Nagurney Camwell

Silence Touching Souls [photo]

"See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls."
~ Mother Teresa of Calcutta

photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell

Sunset at Lake Norman [photo]

Sunset at Lake Norman N.C.
photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell

Chicks [photo]

Chicks
photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell

"World's Greatest Dad" directed by Bobcat Goldthwait

A scene from a new film directed by Bobcat Goldthwait,"World’s Greatest Dad" starring Robin Williams.
Story [Blast Magazine]: Boston Independent Film Fest: Saving the Greatest for last By Emma Rose Johnson

Heron Catches a Fish [photo]

This heron seemed to have wanted to show off a fish he'd just caught.
Poor fish! ;)
photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell

Boyd Tinsley and Rita Dove at the 2009 VA Festival of the Book

Cheese Is Christ!

*Tip o'the hat to David Beckwith for the play on words

Tea Parties: An AstroTurf-Roots Movement

April 14, 1865 - Abe Lincoln Has Died Today

April 14, 1865
April 14, 1865: Lincoln fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending play at Ford's Theater, Washington, D.C.

A southern sympathizer loyal to Virginia, Booth was a twenty-six-year-old struggling actor at the time of the assassination. Shortly thereafter, after escaping to Maryland and then Virginia, he was apprehended and shot to death during a struggle with federal agents in a barn in rural Virginia.

-----


A 19th-Century poster


"He dreamed at night of his death by the hand
Of a bitter world and a faceless man

And he saw his body in a ghastly dream
Draped in black while his widow screamed

Two silver dollars on his eyelids lay
"Abraham Lincoln has died today."

- From the song "John Wilkes Booth" by Mary Chapin Carpenter

THE PREMONITION

"About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible.

I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. I saw light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise.

Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers, 'The President,' was his answer; 'he was killed by an assassin.'

Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since."

-- President Abraham Lincoln

For Becky

My condolences go out to Becky, author of the blog "Benny's World". Sadly, Becky lost her mother this week. My prayers and healing thoughts are with Becky and her family.

The leader of the band is tired
And his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through
My instrument
And his song is in my soul --
My life has been a poor attempt
To imitate the man
Im just a living legacy
To the leader of the band.