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Back to School-Advice
It's back to school time.... Do you have everything you need to start the year off right? Confidence is key to success!For those first time jitters help welcome your pre-school and kinder students with a walk to the door and a quick goodbye. Quick ...
How Do You Help Your Child Develop Emotional Intelligence?
none In her book, “Taking Charge: Your Life Patterns and Their Meaning,” Gudrun Burkhard writes: “It is important that the child’s feeling life should find fertile ground on which to grow. Such fertile soil can be provided by art or religion, but ...
With Great Reverence
With Great Reverence One of the things I meant to do when I returned to Scotland four years ago was to look up an old Scottish friend that I'd last seen some twenty years ago in London. In truth I had a whole hatful of ambitions and intentions on my ...
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again drudging up compassion and patriotism, ready to light candles
and join hands with strangers for the sake of peace and unity.
Countless memorials across our nation will host thousands of tears
praying, begging for a better world where planes are not flown into
our mothers, brothers, and friends. Just as the weeks that followed
September 11, 2001, Americans will stand together, united in our hope
for love and kindness for all mankind.
Everyone I know wants to do something grand, wants to hold hands and
give hugs, maybe take dinner to an elderly woman. We'll turn our
headlights on that day and hang our flags at half-mast. We will honk
at the painted man holding his flag high on the highway overpass.
However, as great as it is to have this unity back in our hearts, I
can't help but feel disgusted that in the last half of the year,
everyone forgot that little feeling of togetherness that carried our
nation through those first few months of recovery. After the debris
was cleared away from Ground Zero, after all survivors' wounds were
dressed, and all television programming was back to normal, it seems
as if Americans also returned to our old ways.
It didn't take long for some of us to attempt to fraud the various
charities setup for the families and victims of 9-11. In fact, some
news reports tell of husbands killing their wives, passing off teary-
eyed stories about how their soul mates were killed at the World
Trade Center - lies that are true for many of our neighbors. This
less than a year after we all held hands and cried together.
Television news brings you reports of parents having sex with their 3-
year-old child over a webcam, all for the pleasure of their fellow
abusive parents. There's fighting everywhere.
We must not only remember that 9-11 happened, but that all of these
other things have happened since. Have we already forgotten how ugly
the world can be that we're back to hurting each other again?
Americans are disconnected from one another. We're back to hating, to
slamming doors in each other's faces, tramping on flowers to save
three seconds around the garden. Again, a fellow American isn't much
more than an inconvenience, a traffic jam, or a lazy slob taking up
air on the Eastside of town.
As we light candles in memory of those lost on September 11, 2001, we
should light the sun to remember how we felt about each other during
those weeks that followed the attacks. With that much love for human
life circulating on a more permanent basis, America is sure to change
for the better. While we remember what was lost, we must take the
time to remember what remains: walking past you on the street with a
bag full of groceries, the children jump-roping in a parking lot, the
elderly man that takes up smoking because he's tired of being alone.
There are so many people in our country who are still alive and in
need of our love and compassion.
We will mourn again for those lost on September 11, 2001. But how
long will our change-of-heart last this time? What about next year?
We must be careful not to let it slip away again. If we don't take
the time to pay some positive attention to those that are still
around, September 11 will happen again; perhaps this time from
within.
Get up, America, and remember everything that happens. Sure, it's
easy to turn the page and flip the channel, but, then the channel is
the only thing that changes.
To read more of "The Connection" or to read poetry, short stories,
and essays, visit GarbageDog online at
http://www.garbagedog.net/garbagedog.html.
Joey can be reached at joey@garbagedog.net.
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Poetry: A poet's poise in the face of evilOregonLive.comBy Special to The Oregonian Poets who write the poetry of poise have an interest in the clarity of discovery, a desire to be immersed in the lyric values of the past in order to communicate with the future, and also a belief that the role of the poet ... |
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Affrilacian poet address Transylvania graduatesLexington Herald LeaderAffrilachian poet Bianca Spriggs, a 2003 Transylvania graduate, performed a poetry reading accompanied by graduating senior Caleb Ritchie on keyboard. Spriggs talked to the students about measuring time in non-traditional ways, such as remembering how ... |
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