Contributor Posts

Memorial Day honors all service members who lost their lives while in service to the United States, during peace and war. It is a time to reflect on those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

            Immortality

   Do not stand 
        By my grave, and weep.
   I am not there,
       I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
    Do not stand
        By my grave, and cry—
     I am not there,
          I did not die.

Poem by Clare Harner, The Gypsy, December 1934 (page 16). The poem is often attributed to anonymous or incorrect sources. Read more about Memorial day:  U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs   -   National Museum of American History

Kara Kondo (1916 -2005) American, of Japanese ancestry (Nisei), born in Wapato, Yakima valley, Washington where she spent her childhood. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, at 27 years of age she was removed to the North Portland Assembly Center, Oregon, and then to the Heart Mountain concentration camp, Wyoming. Kondo was on the staff of the camp newspaper, the Heart Mountain Sentinel. Left camp for Chicago, Illinois, and lived in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Missouri before returning to Yakima, Washington. Became involved in political organization postwar, such as the League of Women Voters. Testified before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians during the redress movement, and became actively involved in groups addressing environmental issues.  Kara Kondo Interview - "The Day of Mass Removal" 

Julius Caesar is believed to have said “Alea iacta est", expressing his irreversible commitment, as he led his army across the Rubicon River in Northern Italy, defying the Roman Senate’s authority and initiating a civil war. More

"On 29 October 1969, two scientists established a connection between computers some 350 miles away and started typing a message. Halfway through, it crashed. They sat down with the BBC 55 years later"......"I was on the phone with Bill when we tried this. I told him I typed the letter L. He told me he had received the letter L and echoed it back. I told him that it printed. Then I typed the letter O. Again, it worked fine. I typed the letter G. Bill told me his system had crashed, and he would call me back"..... Read more at The BBC ➜

Pablo Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica was painted in 1937 when he was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to create a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition. The inspiration for this piece came in the most unexpected and tragic way. On April 26, 1937, the town of Guernica, in Vizcaya, was bombed for about two hours during the Spanish Civil War by warplanes of the Nazi Germany Condor Legion, commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, in support of the Nationalistic Spanish rebels led by Francisco Franco. The horrific carpet bombing attack was the first of its kind in history and reportedly an opportunity to test out new weapons and tactics.
Picasso completed the work quickly on June 4 1937, a grey, black and white painting, on a canvas 11 ft 5 in tall and 25 ft 6 in across, which portrays the suffering brought by violence and chaos. Prominently featured in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, screaming women, a dead baby, a dismembered soldier, and flames.captured the horror and desolation caused by the war.

In 1939, after being displayed in parts of Europe before WWII broke out, the painting was sent to New York on a tour for the benefit of the Spanish Refugee Committee. When World War II broke out later that year, Picasso requested that Guernica, as well as a number of other of his works, be held at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on extended loan. Most of his works were returned to Europe after the war, however Picasso  asked that Guernica stay at the MoMA until the “reestablishment of public liberties” in Spain. The death of Picasso in 1973 and objections by Picasso's heirs who questioned Spain’s democratic credentials delayed Guernica's return to Spain until September 10, 1981 after being in the custody of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for more than four decades.

Once landed in Madrid, the work was initially installed in the Casón del Buen Retiro, which was specially adapted to exhibit it under special security conditions, with armored glass protection. This location had a special significance since it was part of the Prado Museum of which Picasso was director. Later, in July 1992, the work made a final trip to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

"Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has expressed his intention, if elected to a second term, to use the U.S. armed forces to suppress domestic protests. The New York Times reports that Trump’s allies are marshaling legal arguments to justify using National Guard or active-duty military troops for crowd control." More at The Conversation ➜

Memorial Day honors all service members who lost their lives while in service to the United States, during peace and war. It is a time to reflect on those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

            Immortality

   Do not stand 
        By my grave, and weep.
   I am not there,
       I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
    Do not stand
        By my grave, and cry—
     I am not there,
          I did not die.

Poem by Clare Harner, The Gypsy, December 1934 (page 16). The poem is often attributed to anonymous or incorrect sources. Read more about Memorial day:  U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs   -   National Museum of American History

Groundhog Day, is a popular North American tradition observed in the United States and Canada on February 2. The weather lore was brought from German-speaking areas where the badger (German: Dachs) is the forecasting animal. This appears to be an enhanced version of the lore that clear weather on the Christian festival of Candlemas forebodes a prolonged winter. As the tradition goes, if a groundhog emerges from its burrows on this day and sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will go on for six more weeks; if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early. While the tradition remains popular, studies have found no consistent association between a groundhog seeing its shadow and the subsequent arrival time of spring-like weather. In the U.S , the most popular Groundhog ceremony is held at Punxsutawney in western Pennsylvania, centering on a semi-mythical groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil. Other cities in the United States and Canada also have adopted the event. More

"A symbolic moment of peace, grace, and humility amidst one of humanity’s most violent and disgraceful events".
"In December of 1914, a series of grassroots, unofficial ceasefires took hold of the Western Front in the heat of WWI. On Christmas, soldiers from an estimated 100,000 British and German troops began to exchange seasonal greetings and sing songs across the trenches",........ Continue Reading

Quote from Maggie Tokuda-Hall from her article giving her perspective on Gaza as a Jewish, Japanese American.

Click below to read her essay at Densho or to read a related article by Naomi Ishisaka at The Seattle Times. 

Maggie Tokuda-Hall at Densho ➜      Naomi Ishisaka at The Seattle Times ➜

Memorial Day honors all service members who lost their lives while in service to the United States, during peace and war. It is a time to reflect on those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

    "Soldiers Memorial Day"
   Hymn by Mary B. C. Slade

When flow’ry Summer is at hand,
And Spring has gemm’d the earth with bloom,
We hither bring, with loving hand,
Bright flow’rs to deck our soldier’s tomb.

                  (Chorus)
Gentle birds above are sweetly singing
O’er the graves of heroes brave and true;
While the sweetest flow’rs we are bringing,
Wreath’d in garlands of red, white and blue.

They died our country to redeem,
And from the loving earth we bring
The wealth of hill, and vale, and stream,
Our grateful land’s best offering

                 (Chorus)
With snowy hawthorn, clusters white,
Fair violets of heav’nly blue,
And early roses, fresh and bright,
We wreathe the red, and white, and blue.

But purer than the fairest flowers,
We strew above the honored dead,
The tender changeless love of ours,
That decks the soldier’s lowly bed.

                   (Chorus)
We bend and kiss the precious sod,
Swift fall our tears the graves above
Oh! Brothers! from the hills of God,
Look down and see our changeless love.

Written by Mary B. C. Slade in 1870, two years after Gen. John A. Logan first declared May 30th a Memorial Day for decorating the graves of fallen soldiers. Music to her words was written by Perkins, W. O. (William Oscar). In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May. The change went into effect in 1971. Read about the Origins of Memorial Day

I would read novels,
tales of western yore,
about Billy the Kid,
the Dalton Gang, and more.

The early days, in the West,
travelling before rail,
when covered wagons,
used the Oregon Trail.

Imagine the adventure,
as you travelled along,
miles after miles,
toward your new home.

I remember some stories,
told when on their way.
He wrote many novels,
about the West, Zane Grey