Play it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqrGn-ytdzg

Bar code

An  Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Latvian, a Turk, a  German, an Indian, several Americans (including a southerner, a New  Englander, and a Californian), an Argentinean, a Dane, an Australian,  a Slovakian, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a New  Zealander, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a  Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, a Uzbek, a Cypriot, a Pole, a  Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a Cayman Islander, an Aleutian Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uruguayan, a Czech, an Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, an Israeli, a Venezuelan, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Estonian, a Brazilian, a  Portuguese, a Liechtensteiner, a Mongolian, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Moldovan, a Haitian, a Norfolk Islander, a Macedonian, a Bolivian, a Cook Islander, a Tajikistani, a Samoan, an Armenian, an Aruban, an  Albanian, an American Indian, a Tamil Indian, a Greenlander, a Micronesian, a Virgin Islander, a  Georgian, a Bahaman, a Belarusan, a Cuban, a Tongan, a Cambodian, a Qatari, an Azerbaijani, a Romanian, a Chilean, a Kyrgyzstani, a  Jamaican, a Filipino, a Ukrainian, a Dutchman, an Ecuadorian, a Costa  Rican, a Swede, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Belgian, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian, and an African walk into a bar . . .

"Sorry," says the bartender, scanning the entire group crowding the bar,

"I can't serve you without a Thai."

It's all happening at the Five Points

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWnmCu3U09w

It all started

With Phil

He gave me a bone

A moose femur

Bigger than my forearm

At first I took to carrying it

As a downtown curiosity

But then I noticed

People in the cafes

 and on the street

Were treating me with

 more respect    and

I WAS somebody

old friends

THE TRAIN STATION

          IN GENESEE DEPOT...........

has long been moved a bit away from the tracks and made into a little restaurant

that we've frequented for many years.

The restored station depot is where the Broadway stage friends of

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne used to disembark for lovely

weekends up the wooded lane at Ten Chimneys.

Good chum Roy Tinnes met me in Genesee Depot at the cafe for breakfast last week.

Roy's been a Genesee resident for decades.  A friendly guy with a ready smile,

he drove milk delivery semis to Chicago most of his working life.

Retired, he shares historic stories at his leisure at the Depot cafe.

Darcy the waitress let Roy hold her hand because
he is so well known as a regular.  Like clockwork he
shows up at 9 AM after picking up his mail and has his standard
breakfast of oat meal and honey.


Visit the restaurant, notice Roy and Darcy.

................................

FUN THEORY: play this

http://www.thefuntheory.com/piano-staircase

........................


Another friend, writer 
Norb Blei
of Ellison Bay, Door Co. WI
(We call him Norblei, like the cartoonist, Herblock.


He sent us a Utube clip that he made recently from his worksite,
a chicken coop in the Door County woods:


http://youtu.be/n9wHQYPJlkY

Watch the video

Let the band play Dixie; people can change; not us vs. them - it's us AND them....

Dr. Parker Palmer

 of Madison WI

 recently gave a lecture at Lawrence University, Appleton, WI

and here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlF0X0QLasU&feature=relmfu

Parker J. Palmer (born 1939 in Chicago, Illinois) is an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change.

Palmer attended Carleton College as an undergraduate and received a Ph.D. in sociologyfrom the University of California at Berkeley in 1970.[edit]Education

Career

Palmer served for fifteen years as Senior Associate of the now defunct American Association of Higher Education. He is the founder and Senior Partner of the Center for Courage & Renewal,^[1] which oversees the “Courage to Teach” program for K-12 educators across the country and parallel programs for people in other professions, including medicine, law, ministry and philanthropy.

He has published a dozen poems, more than one hundred essays and eight books. Palmer’s work has been recognized with ten honorary doctorates, two Distinguished Achievement Awards from the National Educational Press Association, an Award of Excellence from the Associated Church Press, and grants from the Danforth Foundation, the Lilly Endowment and the Fetzer Institute.

An overview and critical review of Palmer's written work on education can be found at infed.org, an open, independent, not-for-profit site established in 1995 to explore educational theory and practice: [1].

[edit]Speeches

In March 1992 he gave a talk at a United Methodist Church on “Faith or Frenzy.” The following is a synopsis: He opened with a comparison between a historical perspective on the contemplative life vs. an active life. In earlier centuries contemplation was the preferred life, one followed by academic or religious scholars. An active life was one of tedious toil where one did not have the time to reflect on a higher plane. Over time that changed. An active life became more prominent as technology progressed and the power associated with it. Man was playing God. A pendulum effect between the two has swung back again as limits to technology have not provided a solution and the lure of a contemplative life and its seclusion has taken hold.

Palmer suggests that a hybrid between the two is the mix where spirituality finds a balance, because “before you can have a spiritual life, you must first have a life,” - a life immersed in the active world. It is a world where one is alone and also part of a community. A spiritual life is not one which flees the world of action. He contends that when one becomes disillusioned by an experience or false value system, that person experiences reality. He believes disillusionment is the journey God takes us on, away from fiction and fantasy toward reality and truth. These experiences can be very painful. Five examples of illusion he covered during the talk are: the world as a battleground, scarcity, I am what I do, only cultivating rewarded talent, and finally that everything must be measurable.

Palmer launched into a discussion of faith as a misunderstood word. Faith is not a set of beliefs we are supposed to sign up for he says. It is instead the courage to face our illusions and allow ourselves to be disillusioned by them. It is the courage to walk through our illusions and dispel them. He states the opposite of faith is not doubt, it is fear - fear of abandoning illusions because of our comfort level with them. For example, not everything is measurable and yet so much of what we do has that yardstick applied to it. Another illusion is “I am what I do .... my worth comes from my functioning. If there is to be any love for us, we must succeed at something.” He says in this example that it is more important to be a “human being” rather than a “human doing.” We are not what we do. We are who we are. The rigors of trying to be faithful involves being faithful to one's gifts, faithful to other's reality, faithful to the larger need in which we are all embedded, faithful to the possibilities inherent in our common life.

[edit]Personal life

Palmer is a member of the Religious Society of Friends. He lives with his wife Sharon inMadison, Wisconsin.

[edit]Honors and awards

• In 1993, Palmer won the national award of the Council of Independent Colleges for Outstanding Contributions to Higher Education.^[2]

• In 1998, The Leadership Project, a national survey of 10,000 administrators and faculty, named Palmer as one of the thirty “most influential senior leaders” in higher education and one of the ten key “agenda-setters” of the past decade: “He has inspired a generation of teachers and reformers with evocative visions of community, knowing, and spiritual wholeness.”^[3]

• In 2001, the Carleton College Alumni Association gave Palmer a Distinguished Achievement Award.^[4]

• In 2002, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education created the “Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award”, given annually to the directors of ten medical residency programs that exemplify patient-centered professionalism in medical education.^[5]

• In 2003, the American College Personnel Association named Palmer a “Diamond Honoree” for outstanding contributions to the field of student affairs.^[6]

• In 2010, the Religious Education Association (An Association of Professors, Practitioners, and Researchers in Religious Education) presented Palmer with the William Rainey Harper Award, “given to outstanding leaders whose work in other fields has had profound impact upon religious education.” Named after the first president of the University of Chicago, founder of the REA, the award has been given only ten times since its establishment in 1970. Previous recipients include Marshall McLuhan, Elie Wiesel, Margaret Mead and Paulo Freire.^[7]

• In 2011, Palmer was named an Utne Reader Visionary, one of "25 people who are changing your world."^[8]

[edit]Published works

• Palmer, Parker J. (2011-09-06). Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0470590805.
• Palmer, Parker J. and Arthur Zajonc, with Megan Scribner (2010-07-20). The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0470487907.
• Palmer, Parker J. (2004-09-22). A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0787971007.
• Palmer, Parker J. (2000-09-10). Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0787947354.
• Palmer, Parker J. (1999-07-21) [1990]. The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity and Caring. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0787949341.
• Palmer, Parker J. (1983-08-25). The Company of Strangers: Christians and the Renewal of America's Public Life. New York: Crossroad. ISBN 978-0824506018.
• Palmer, Parker J. (2007-08-17). The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0787996864.
• Palmer, Parker J. (2008-04-18) [1980]. The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0787996963.
• Palmer, Parker J. (1993-05-28) [1980]. To Know As We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey. San Francisco: HarperOne. ISBN 978-0060664510.

[edit]Secondary sources

• Intrator, Sam M. (ed.) (2005-04-06). Living the Questions: Essays Inspired by the Work and Life of Parker J. Palmer. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0787965549.

[edit]References

1. ^ "About the Center: Staff". Center for Courage and Renewal. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
2. ^ Orr, Douglas M. (1999). "The Courage to Teach: Reflections on Parker Palmer’s Work". The Independent. Council of Independent Colleges. Retrieved 2008-03-12. "In 1993, [Palmer] was the recipient of the CIC Outstanding Service Award and was a speaker at the annual Presidents Institute."
3. ^ “Who's Who: Higher Education's Senior Leadership” (Change Magazine, Vol. 30/No. 1, pp. 14-18, Jan-Feb 1998)
4. ^ "2001 Award Recipients". Carleton College. Retrieved 2008-03-12.^{[dead link]}
5. ^ "Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award". Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
6. ^ "Diamond Honorees: Classes of 1999 to 2005" (pdf). American College Personnel Association. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
7. ^ "Religious Education Association". Religious Education Association. Retrieved 2010-10-30.
8. ^ "Parker J. Palmer: Wise Guy". Utne Reader, November-December 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.

...........

Parker Palmer quotes:  http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/quotations/palmer.html

“A scholar is committed to building on knowledge that others have gathered, correcting it, confirming it, enlarging it. ”
― Parker J. Palmer

Can you spot the bone china?

Wednesday, 2-1-12 was Dee's sabbath (day off).

She likes to spread out her writing projects and notes

on the 6 foot round all-purpose table

we have here at the Odd Fellows hall.

It serves for committee meetings as well.

(Note to WHS '54 reunion planners, you'll be sitting here.)

3:32, and Xmas tree is still ornamented.
 Expected guests have come and gone in the past days

and the plan is to remove the ornaments for another year, but leave the tree

with its white mini-lights up for a while.  Congo wreath (left) still looks pretty, too.

Will stay up, nneedles not dropping yet.

Dee likes to light candles at the table when she works, even in daylight.  I sit back with camera and drink iced coffee

from the old Mobil thermos mug.  (with a straw)

.................................................................

From today's Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal:

Brewer-Obama Incident shows morning in America is over

By Leonard Pitts

Jan. 31, 2012 

A picture, the saying goes, is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, we have only about 550 with which to appraise a picture that has raised eyebrows across the country: In it, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is seen wagging her finger in President Barack Obama's face during his visit to her state last week.

The two were apparently engaged in a discussion of Arizona's controversial immigration laws and of a 2010 White House meeting that Brewer described at the time as "very cordial." She has since written a book in which she now claims the president's demeanor was "condescending."

As to her demeanor in that picture, Brewer says she, ahem, has a habit of talking with her hands. She also says she felt "threatened." Apparently, she thought the scary black man might hurt her even though he's president of the United States and they were standing in broad daylight surrounded by security. Good thing he didn't follow her into an elevator. She might have Maced him.

Perhaps you are old enough to remember when it was morning in America. That was the title of a 1984 campaign ad for Ronald Reagan, but it also came to symbolize an era. Say what you will about Reagan, but credit him with this much: He restored to his party and the nation a sense of vibrant optimism that came as a welcome jolt after Jimmy Carter's malaise and Richard Nixon's crookedness. Nearly 30 years later, as his putative political offspring attempt to claim his mantle, it is obvious by many measures that none of them is Reagan. But the most glaring deficit is embodied in that picture.

It reminds us that Republicans are no longer about sunshine and can-do. These days, they simply seem cranky and dyspeptic. As in Herman Cain vowing to build a fence to electrocute Mexicans, Newt Gingrich verbally punching out the media and debate audiences cheering for record executions and the death of the uninsured. As in Jan Brewer poking her finger in the president's face.

Under Reagan, optimism about the future was the Republican brand. But that brand has curdled in the ensuing 30 years, and the party that once sold hope has become instead the party of grouchy codgers yelling at the future to get off their lawn. More to the point, it has become a party of those unable to process the sense of dislocation, the loss of primacy and privilege our present demographic path portends. Thus, it has become the party of resentment and resistance, the last stand against ongoing racial, religious, cultural and sexual upheaval, the Alamo in the fight to forestall change.

This is why a Jan Brewer feels herself empowered to wag her finger in the face of the president. And why the charisma-challenged Mitt Romney spends long weeks out in the cold looking for love like a character in a country song while bomb-throwing zealots who would have been laughed out of previous elections take turns playing frontrunner.

They will likely settle for him, but what Romney offers is not what many in the Republican electorate evidently seek. At bottom, they seem less concerned with competence or a new economic plan than with finding a gunslinger for a showdown against the future.

Ronald Reagan would not recognize his party today. Morning in America is almost 30 years gone. It's high noon now.

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald. Email lpitts@miamiherald.com

...............................................................

In today's mail:

Bright Sun after Heavy Snow, by Jane Kenyon

This morning we hold a print-out of the WRITERS ALMANAC daily poem, Bright Sun after Heavy Snow by Jane Kenyon.  Anyone can get this website, and as SRN readers know, it is a mainstay for us.  Bonnie Camp is to be thanked for that.

Jane Kenyon

1947–1995

William Abranowicz

New Hampshire's poet laureate at the time of her untimely death at age forty-seven, Jane Kenyon was noted for verse that probed the inner psyche, particularly with regard to her own battle against the depression that lasted throughout much of her adult life. Writing for the last two decades of her life at her farm in northern New England, Kenyon is also remembered for her stoic portraits of domestic and rural life; as essayist Gary Roberts noted in Contemporary Women Poets, her poetry was "acutely faithful to the familiarities and mysteries of home life, and it is distinguished by intense calmness in the face of routine disappointments and tragedies."

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kenyon spent her first two decades in the Midwest, attending the University of Michigan in her hometown through completion of her master's degree in 1972. It was while she was a student at the University of Michigan that Kenyon met her future husband, the poet Donald Hall, who taught there. After her marriage, Kenyon moved with Hall to Eagle Pond Farm, a New Hampshire farm that had been in Hall's family for generations and where she would spend the remainder of her life.

Kenyon published only four volumes of poetry during her life: From Room to Room,The Little Boat, Let Evening Come, and Constance, and translated a volume of works by the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. Despite her relatively small output, her poetry was highly lauded by critics throughout her lifetime. As fellow poet Carol Muske remarked in the New York Times when describing Kenyon's The Boat of Quiet Hours, "These poems surprise beauty at every turn and capture truth at its familiar New England slant. Here, in Keats's terms, is a capable poet." Indeed, Kenyon's work has often been compared with that of English Romantic poet John Keats; Roberts dubbed her a "Keatsian poet" and noted that, "like Keats, she attempts to redeem morbidity with a peculiar kind of gusto, one which seeks a quiet annihilation of self-identity through identification with benign things."

The cycles of nature held special significance for Kenyon, who returned to them again and again, both in her variations on Keats's ode "To Autumn," and in other pastoral verse. In Let Evening Come, her third published collection—and one that found the poet taking what Poetry essayist Paul Breslin called "a darker turn"—Kenyon explored nature's cycles in other ways: the fall of light from day to dusk to night, and the cycles of relationships with family and friends throughout a long span of years brought to a close by death. Let Evening Come "shows [Kenyon] at the height of her powers," according to Muske in a review of the 1990 volume for the New York Times Book Review, with the poet's "descriptive skills . . . as notable as her dramatic ones. Her rendering of natural settings, in lines of well-judged rhythm and simple syntax, contribute to the [volume's] memorableness."

Constance began Kenyon's study of depression, and her work in this regard has been compared with that of the late poet Sylvia Plath. Comparing the two, Breslin wrote that "Kenyon's language is much quieter, less self-dramatizing" than that of Plath, and where the earlier poet "would give herself up, writing her lyrical surrender to oblivion, . . . Kenyon fought to the end." Breslin noted the absence of self-pity in Kenyon's work, and the poet's ability to separate from self and acknowledge the grief and emotional pain of others, as in her poems "Coats," "Sleepers in Jaipur," and "Gettysburg: July 1, 1863," which imagines a mortally wounded soldier lying in wait for death on the historic battlefield.

In Otherwise, a posthumous collection containing twenty poems written just prior to her death as well as several taken from her earlier books, Kenyon "chronicles the uncertainty of living as culpable, temporary creatures," according to Nationcontributor Emily Gordon. As Muske added in the New York Times Book Review, Kenyon avoids sentimentality throughout Otherwise. "The poet here sears a housewife's apron, hangs wash on the line, walks a family dog and draws her thought from a melancholy, ecstatic soul as if from the common well, 'where the fearful and rash alike must come for water.' In ecstasy," Muske continued, Kenyon "sees this world as a kind of threshold through which we enter God's wonder."