My Commonplace Book... African American People of Note: Maya Angelou

    Maya Angelou, was born Marguerite Ann Johnson April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri, and was an American poet, memoirist, actress, and an important figure in the American Civil Rights Movement. In 2001 she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal. She is known mainly for her six autobiographies that start with the book: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings published in 1969. Ms. Angelou is also known for her poetry.

 

 

QUOTES 

FROM MAYA ANGELOU

 "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it."

 

My Commonplace Book... Snippets in Time: G. Michael Hopf

I was reading a fanfiction "Let's Start This From the Beginning" and came accross the following quote. It is so apropo to the current situation in the world today. I therefore wanted to save it in my commonplace book. The quote is

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” ~ G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

Another excellent quote from the same book is:

“...We don't defeat our enemy by giving him a platform to spread the very propaganda they hope will defeat you... You can only have freedom and liberty when others want that for you. When the other side only uses freedom with the hopes of destroying it later once [*they're] in charge, it's time to shut them down... They will use our Constitution as long as they need to until they get the power, then watch them trash it.”

 

 *added by me

Memorial... My Brother: John Michael Schlageter... Fifth birthday home!

 

YOU DON’T JUST LOSE SOMEONE ONCE

You lose them over and over,

sometimes in the same day.

When the loss, momentarily forgotten,

creeps up,

and attacks you from behind.

Fresh waves of grief as the realization hits home,

they are gone.

Again.

 

You don’t just lose someone once,

you lose them every time you open your eyes to a new dawn,

and as you awaken,

so does your memory,

so does the jolting bolt of lightning that rips into your heart,

they are gone.

Again.

 

Losing someone is a journey,

not a one-off.

There is no end to the loss,

there is only a learned skill on how to stay afloat,

when it washes over.

Be kind to those who are sailing this stormy sea,

they have a journey ahead of them,

and a daily shock to the system each time they realize,

they are gone,

Again.

 

You don’t just lose someone once,

you lose them every day,

for a lifetime.

 

Credit: Donna Ashworth

Memorial... My Brother: John Michael Schlageter..

 

My Commonplace Book... Snippets in Time: "Culture Wars could break American democracy"

What does Culture, Wars, and Democracy have in common? 

“Democracy, in my view, is an agreement that we will not kill each other over our differences, but instead we’ll talk through those differences. And part of what’s troubling is that I’m beginning to see signs of the justification for violence,” says Hunter

“Culture wars always precede shooting wars. They don’t necessarily lead to a shooting war, but you never have a shooting war without a culture war prior to it, because culture provides the justifications for violence.”

James Davison Hunter author of "Culture Wars"

My Commonplace Book... African American People of Note: Martin Luther King

"Snippets in Time" are comments, words or phrases, quotes from a random collection of almost anything I read in—newspapers, blogs, journals, essays, books, etc...

Dr. Martin Luther King:

"A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.."

Dr. King uttered these words during a sermon in Selma, Alabama, on March 8th, 1965, the day after “Bloody Sunday,” on which civil rights protesters were attacked and beaten by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

 

America: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave? or is it?

 Saw this on Facebook, so am posting it because it is true!

"I never dreamed that I would have to face the prospect of not living in the United States of America, at least not the one I have known all my life. I have never wished to live anywhere else. This is my home and I was privileged to be born here.

But today I woke up and... I realized that everything is about to change. No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, something evil has invaded our nation, and our lives are never going to be the same. I have been confused by the hostility of family and friends. I look at people I have known all my life so filled with hate that they will agree with opinions that if they were in their right minds they would never express as their own. It's absolutely unbelievable. I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone.....then I saw this and I think that it's pretty close to describing how I feel.

I'm not starting a fight, but it is something to think about. This may open a ton of outraged comments by some. Many who will argue how "wrong" this post is. My suggestion: save your time and effort! You are not changing the reality of what we are living by trying to somehow justify this insanity. 

Nevertheless, I could not resist because we are becoming the Twilight Zone. We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind!

• If a dude pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him.
• Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.
• Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good.
• It was cool for Joe Biden to "blackmail" the President of Ukraine, but it’s an impeachable offense if Donald Trump inquires about it.
• Twenty is too young to drink a beer, but eighteen is old enough to vote.
• People who have never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.
• Inflammatory rhetoric is outrageous, but harassing people in restaurants is virtuous.
• People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.
• Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome, but you had better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.
• Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gangbangers who jump the southern fence are welcome.
• $5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not.
• If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.
• People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female President.
• We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan to us.
• Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.
• Criminals are catch-and-released to hurt more people but stopping them is bad because it's a violation of THEIR rights.
• And pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us "racists"?!

Nothing makes sense anymore, no values, no morals, no civility, and people are dying of a Chinese virus, but it is racist to refer to it as Chinese even though it began in China. We are clearly living in an upside down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong, but killing innocent babies is right, where darkness is light and light is now darkness. 

Wake up America, the great unsinkable ship Titanic America has hit an iceberg, is taking on water and sinking fast. The choice is yours to make. What will it be? Time is short, make your choice wisely!

Not my words but exactly accurate and disturbing!

Feel free to copy and paste. I did."

My Commonplace Book... Coraline by Neil Gaiman

 

 “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Neil Gaiman has some of the best quotes!

 

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“Coraline sighed. 'You really don't understand do you?' she said. 'I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted, just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?”

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“Because,' she said, 'when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.”

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“being brave didn’t mean you weren’t scared. Being brave meant you were scared, really scared, badly scared, and you did the right thing anyway.”

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“They were having an argument as old and comfortable as an armchair, the kind of argument that no one ever really wins or loses but which can go on forever, if both parties are willing.” 

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“...'Mister Bobo says he thinks it might have been a weasel.'

'Mister Bobo?'

'The man in the top flat. Mister Bobo. Fine old circus family I believe. Romanian or Slovenian or Livonian, or one of those countries. Bless me, I can never remember them any more.'

It had never occurred to Coraline that the crazy old man upstairs actually had a name, she realised. If she'd known his name was Mr. Bobo she would have said it every chance she got. How often do you get to say a name like 'Mister Bobo' aloud?”

My Commonplace Book... I Hold Him Up

While attending the Law Enforcement Coordinators' Symposium in Albuquerque, NM, I read the following poem:

I Hold Him Up

By: Michelle Federowicz

My Commonplace Book... Snippets in Time: Titanic 1912 - 2012

http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/housechu/harper.htm

Titanic (1912)

1912 - 2012

The Titanic sank 100 years ago and was one of the worst tragedies to have happened.  An  employee of the White Star Line, at the launch of the Titanic , May 31, 1911 said "Not even God Himself could sink this ship". 

There are many stories of heroic behavior coming out from the Titanic disaster, such as the band playing on while the ship sank and other stories.  There are also stories of people trying to buy their way onto the life boats or pushing women and children away so that they (men) could get on the life boats.  There is also the reports that the life boats were launched without even having a full load, just a few people on them and no one did anything to really help the people that were crowded into the lower berths like cattle.  But, there are more stories of heroes' that day.  One story even caused me to tear up.  

The story of John Harper is truly inspirational and will make you think. I know it did me.

My Commonplace Book... Timeline: WWI - Frank Buckles - Doughboy

Frank Buckles, Last World War 1 Doughboy, is dead at 110

"Frank Buckles, who drove an Army ambulance in France in 1918 and came to symbolize a generation of embattled young Americans as the last of the WW1 doughboys, died on Sunday at his home in Charles Town, WV.  He was 110

Frank Woodruff Buckles was born Feb. 1, 1901, on a farm near Bethany, MO.  He was living in Oakwood, OK., when the United States entered WW1, and he tried to enlist in the Marine Corps at age 16, having been inspired by recruiting posters.

The Marines turned him down as under age and under the required weight.  The navy did not want him either, saying he had flat feet.  But the Army took him in August 1917 after he lied about his age, and he volunteered to be an ambulance driver, hearing that was the quickest path to service in France.

He sailed for England in December 1917 on the Carpathia, the ship that helped save survivors of the Titanic's sinking in 1912.  He later served in various locations in France, including Bordeaux, and drove military autos and ambulances...

 Mr. Buckles escorted German prisoners of war back to their homeland after the Armistice, then returned to the United States and later worked in the Toronto office of the White Star shipping line.  He traveled widely over the years, working for steamship companies, and he was on business in Manila when the Japanese occupied it after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.  He was imprisoned by the Japanese and lost more than 50 pounds before being liberated by an American airborne unit in February 1945.

After retiring from steamship work in the mid 1950s, Mr. Buckles ran a cattle ranch in Charles Town, and he was still riding a tractor there at age 106..."

~The New York Times (Richard Goldstein, reporter)~