Harry Belafonte nails it.
Only those who are determined to be ignorant, or those who have decided to be racist will take issue with Mr. Belafonte.
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I didn't have my camera, and I am glad.
Arlington Park, Sarasota, 4:00 p.m. 13th September. Oh joy! Oh delight! Two Roseate Spoonbills in this urban park, foraging for goodies in the flooded grassland. They are utterly gorgeous. My first thought was "darn it, I don't have my camera". Then I thought again, "enjoy this beauty in and of itself for this brief time, not in order to get a good photo'" My mind went to Paul Gerhardt's marvelous evening hymn "The duteous day now closeth" and to these particular words: And we, this marvel seeing, Forget our selfish being, For joy of beauty not our own.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness (Keats)
From "my park". Female Muscovy Duck teaches her second flock of the season that sodden ground is a great place for worms and bugs. The Ibises know this too. They share their sodden grassy area at Arlington Park with a lonely Muscovy male. I call Ibises the "Combine Harvester" birds. They work a wormy/buggy area as a team, advancing together. They are skittish of humans. I am about ten yards away from this group. They are already moving away from me. (Happens to me at parties with other human beings too!) 😉 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- No great autumnal leaves in South West Florida. but the mellow fruitfulness of the shrubs with their berries has a tender beauty.
New York Times' abysmal failure
For many years the New York Times has been regarded as the American Newspaper of Record. "All the news that's fit to print" has been the N.Y.T.'s proud banner That banner has been defiled by the the decision of the Times's Editor to print the following anonymous editorial. (Don't bother to read it). https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html To be sure it is fascinating and titillating, worthy of the worst tabloids (did anyone say the London Daily Mail?!), but shameful for the once venerable Times. Shameful for its anonymity. --------------------------------------------------- Those of us such as Bruce Lomas, Mary Luti, and other godly pastors, ministers, bishops, preachers and teachers (and me!) are familiar with the anonymous letters which arrived in the mail or were smuggled onto our desks. Those letters were always critical of aspects of our ministry, and most often they purported to represent...
'Cause Pepperidge Farm Remembers (and I got it all wrong)
When I came to the U.S.A in 1976 I was assigned to a small congregation in the already declining paper mill town of Fitchburg, MA. The congregation took me sight unseen on the recommendation of the then Bishop of Western Massachusetts, Alexander D. Stewart. I was provided with a tiny and comfortable apartment and a serviceable V.W. Beetle. I was entranced by American T.V. and watched a lot of N.B.C. from Boston (until 1995 on WBZ) from the Today show with Tom Brokaw, Jane Pauley and Gene Shallitt, to the nightly news (with that marvelous correspondent Douglas Kiker), and the Tonight Show with Johnnie Carson. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I especially remember the Pepperidge Farm commercials. Here is one from about 1978 https://youtu.be/0M_5eCNuric I believed that Pepperidge Farms was a family owned farm and bakery, not far away from Fitchburg ...