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.

The One Man Village by Simon El Habre

The One Man Village - Trailer
Source: www.youtube.com
A Feature Documentary by Simon El Habre

Semaan is a farmer leading a quiet life, in the small village of Aïn El Halazoun, in the Lebanese mountains. He wakes up at the crack of dawn, tends to his cows and other animals and prepares the produce he will sell at the market

During the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), Aïn el Halazoun was completely destroyed and eventually deserted. Its original inhabitants, all from the El Habre family, regularly go back to the village to visit their houses and cultivate their plots of land, but they always leave before sunset.

By observing life in a quasi ghost village, the film reflects upon collective and individual memory, in a country whose inhabitants seem unwilling to learn from their past, even while on the brink of a new civil war.

From ODE Magazine -
Semaan Bilda’ia: A Glimpse at Peace

"Sometimes a film can make a difference. I just saw this one at Berlinale. Wow! [...]

Spiritual Healing Around the World

Spiritual Healing Around the World - Photo Essays - TIME Source: www.time.com
Across countries and faiths, the devout believe the power of the spirit can heal the ills of the flesh.

Civilian Deaths Stain US Military Support in Uganda

The troops did not seal off the rebels’ escape routes or deploy soldiers to many of the nearby towns where the rebels slaughtered people in churches and even tried to twist off toddlers’ heads. - from NY Times

I was sick at heart to have read that a US-aided military mission in Uganda has resulted in a killing spree unleashed upon innocent civilians in nearby villages. The civilians were targets of the Lord's Resistance Army. For all the good some may say we're trying to do, the massacre - 900 innocent lives taken - puts a stain on the US simply for having been formally involved and, if we were going to be involved, having overseen the result - a muderous mess.

I wonder what the Obama foreign policy team is thinking about this kind of military support? If the foreign policy of the United States is such that we're attempting to regain our reputation and are playing the part of our brothers' keeper, it seems we're playing it thin and candestine with too many innocent lives on the line. Don't we citizens have the right to be made well aware of what our nation's goals are in asserting our military efforts in this part of the world...and how far we'll go to achieve those goals?

There will be certain ideologues who will say that the US has few direct national security interests in Uganda and that we can't go around protecting every human right. There are some who'll say that they believe it's morally right to use US military to defend the innocent in an ever-increasingly interdependent world. As a pragmatist living in a nation that is struggling to stay economically afloat, I land somewhere in between, admittedly more on the side of protecting human rights because my conscience informs me that we can't just turn our heads and look the other way. Yet, if we're going to become involved, we can't go about it half-assed.

When innocents are massacred and it's shown that, for unclear foreign policy reasons, the US is becoming more intensely involved, it's time for US citizens to ask their leaders to start talking about Africa and our foreign policy goals in Africa for the 21st century.

See Jeffrey Gettleman and Eric Schmitt's NYTimes story

USPSA - Obama’s Peace Corps?

The the U.S. Public Service Academy [USPSA] has found a new home for communication on Twitter.com. Things seem to be happening very fast right now for Chris Myers Asch who, according to a January 6th article in the NY Times, "with no money, contacts or obvious qualifications, [..] quit his job three years ago at a Mississippi after-school program and started a campaign to create a civilian service academy — a West Point for bureaucrats."

Looks like a commitment with a whole lot of belief behind it...and support and/or endorsements from public figures such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden.

As of 5:30 today, here is a the USPSA's Twitter history [you may wish to follow them]:

Calling Senator Gillibrand's office
about 1 hour ago from web

Just got visited by ABC News about 4 hours ago from web

Missouri student supports USPSA: http://tinyurl.com/augz7j about 8 hours ago from web

Washington student supports USPSA: http://tinyurl.com/atzxhe 1 day ago from web

New York Times supports USPSA: http://tinyurl.com/d5pmym 1 day ago from web

Kansas student supports USPSA: http://tinyurl.com/bmm2o7 1 day ago from web

Reading the Baltimore Sun's column supporting USPSA: http://tinyurl.com/cualon 1 day ago from web

Building the U.S. Public Service Academy! www.uspublicserviceacademy.org 1 day ago from web

"Tear Down This Myth" by Will Bunch [Preview]

If the Reagan legacy has been a sacred cow for conservative ideologues these last twenty years or so, its near-mythical essence - after having been intelligently de-boned and stripped by Will Bunch in his new book - is seen in reality as more fast-food ground patty than juicy Ruth's Chris Porterhouse.

Let's face it - a lot more hamburgers have been served to Americans under Golden Arches than expensive steaks under chandeliers, and this should be made apparent as Mr. Bunch lays out the Reagan-era realities v. the right-wing myths.


Everyday Americans have lived with the effects of the Reagan years, where much pragmatic compromise was made for the common good, while those modern conservatives who've cleansed key truths and magnified the legend already cleverly self-created by the politically gifted President Reagan have pasted an almost-cinematic image of the man and his times on our collective memory like Smith & Wollensky on grilled short loin. You might say, in a figurative sense, that Mr. Bunch grounds it all down to everyman's chopped beef - no pretense - pass the ketchup, please.

You can read an excerpt from Chapter One of Tear Down This Myth - How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future [Simon & Schuster's Free Press] at Mr. Bunch's Philly Inquirer blog Attytood

Mr. Bunch lays out what he calls a "political three-step tango" - the great storyline that an aggressive breed of conservatives have used as a tool to win elections and perpetuate policies that fit their extreme agenda since Reagan left office. The steps of the dance include washing away negative references to actual occurrences during Reagan's time as President, awarding him far more credit than he deserves for positive turns of events during his time as President, and intentionally leaving out the fact that Reagan was, in reality and to his credit, a political pragmatist on key issues rather than an unyielding and impractical idealist.

I found this comment from Chapter One to ring particularly true:

"Reagan's devotion to certain principles was genuine, but it was coupled with an equally genuine belief in the importance of compromise and an understanding that you had to get the best deal you could under the circumstances," notes Stephen Knott, an associate professor of political science at the U.S. Naval War College who previously ran the Reagan Oral History Project while at the University of Virginia. "I'm not sure this part of Reagan's legacy is appreciated by George W. Bush and those Republicans looking for 'another Reagan.'"

Mr. Bunch suggests that the political genius of Ronald Reagan was actually found in his unique ability to create and say the words that shape ideas that last - and provide food for the makings of a legend by those politicos and think-tankers who'd stand to ideologically benefit - long after the speaker has proverbially left the building.

What Mr. Bunch also suggests is that perhaps the influential and publicly popular pragmatist who was the real Reagan was not a one-of-a-kind. While most of the Democratic primary contenders in Campaign 2008 couldn't seem to escape the "deepening shadow of the legacy of Ronald Reagan," Barack Obama seemed to intuitively understand the public desire for hope and optimism and decidedly sought to praise the political style of the twice-elected Republican. Mr. Obama told the editorial board of the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal in January 2008:

"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not" [...] Seeking to elaborate, the Democratic senator said that "[w]e want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

Today you see President Reagan's son, conservative talk-show host Michael Reagan pointing to Obama's political pragmatism while Reagan's other son, Ron Reagan, had endorsed Mr. Obama for President.
Strange days, indeed...most peculiar, Mama...

At Attytood, Will Bunch provides up-to-date commentary about his own book:

OK - but you may ask whether the Reagan myth matters as much now that George W. Bush is back at the ranch and President Obama in the White House. I would argue that it does. Increasingly, the GOP minority in Washington, including 41 senators with just enough votes to derail the administration’s proposals, is going to invoke the Reagan myth to continue to justify a tax system that harms the middle class and policies that ignore the scientific consensus on climate change. Look at the first major policy debate of the Obama presidency, over the proposed $825 billion economic stimulus. Democrats are under enormous political pressure to weight the plan toward tax cuts, and away from spending programs, which Republicans quickly branded as much pork - despite evidence that jobs programs stimulate the economy at twice the rate of tax reductions. "I remain concerned about wasteful spending that might be attached to the tax relief," House GOP leader John Boehner said - and right-wing talk radio was a lot less restrained. Ironically, the spending sought by the Democrats seek to undo the crumbling of America’s infrastructure and the failure to create "green-collar" jobs that dates back to the Reagan era.

And here’s another reason the Reagan myth still matters, and that’s because there’s a pundit class inside the Beltway that cuts its teeth in the 1980s and remains firmly convinced that America is a "center-right" nation, despite massive evidence to the contrary. These pundits will urge Obama to enact an economic recovery package in the Gipper’s image, ignoring the long-term harmed caused by Reagan’s brand of "trickle-down economics."

Unless we don’t let them - and tear down this myth.

I look forward to reading the rest of the book which can be purchased, if you're also interested, here or you can receive news from the book’s Facebook group here.

See Yourself at the Inauguration

This is really cool.
Click on the photo below and, if you were anywhere near the Mall on Inauguration Day, you'll see yourself. (Use the tools on the left).